Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The storm broke the pass into knives.

Bang Chan pushed through the sleet, cloak heavy with ice, the wind chewing at the edges of his breath. Somewhere beneath the scouring howl, a smaller sound kept happening—thin as a thread, stubborn as a spark. A whimper. A heartbeat trying not to give up.

He found the omega half-buried in drift and shadow where the trail narrowed to a ledge. Cloth torn, wrist raw where a ribbon-brand had been ripped away in a hurry. Salt and cedar lived in Chan’s coat; blood and sea-spray lived on the stranger. His lips were blue. His lashes clumped with snow. When Chan knelt, the boy flinched and tried to curl tighter, little spine set like a bow against the cold.

“Easy,” Chan said, voice pitched to the quietest place he had. “I’m not here to take anything. I’m here to bring you home.”

Eyes opened—a startled, fox-bright brown. “No home,” the omega rasped. The word broke on his tongue, brittle as ice. “Not… anymore.”

“Then we’ll make one,” Chan said simply, because kingship had taught him that sometimes the truest power is the obvious kindness everyone is afraid to choose.

He shed his cloak and wrapped it around the smaller body, lifting him with a care that made Chan’s own ribs ache. The omega was light from too many days of running; he fit under Chan’s chin like something lost and finally found. Chan let a thin ribbon of scent unfurl—warm cedar, winter tea—and felt the tremor in the other’s shoulders ease by a hair.

“Name?” Chan asked, stepping into the wind.

A pause. A swallow. “Felix.”

“Felix,” Chan repeated, and the name fitted into the night like a star you’d been trying to remember. “I’m Chan.”

“The Wolf King,” Felix whispered, not sure if it was warning or relief.

“Just Chan,” he said, and he meant it.

By the time the High Den flared out of the snow—stone and smoke, banners snapping—the storm had chewed its own tail and gone quiet. Torches guttered along the gate; sentries straightened as the King strode in, coat sodden, hair plastered to his brow, an omega in his arms like a secret.

The Elders met him in the great hall, their braids hung with law. “Your Majesty,” said the tallest, eyes flicking to Felix’s throat. “A stray. Markless. Another clan’s trouble is not our den’s duty.”

Chan didn’t break stride. “Another heart’s beating is always our den’s duty.” His voice was gentle and iron at once. He felt Felix tense against him, waiting for the next demand, the hook tucked inside the hand extended.

“There are… protocols,” another Elder said, meaning: claim him, control him, make the law neat.

Chan turned toward the warmed corridors, toward the quiet rooms where the sick were mended and the frightened were given tea. “And there is mercy,” he said over his shoulder. “Mercy outranks protocol tonight.”

He laid Felix on a low bed near the hearth, the cotton sheets warmed like sunlit stone. The healers fluttered in like swifts—soft hands, clean cloth, salve that smelled of thyme. Felix tried to sit up, dizzy with the need to be small enough not to be seen. Chan crouched close, catching his gaze the way you catch a skittish flame.

“May I touch?” he asked, palms open. No king’s command. A question.

It startled a laugh out of Felix—small, unbelieving. “You’re… asking?”

“I’m making sure the first thing you learn here is that your body belongs to you,” Chan said. “If you let me help, I will. If you say no, I will sit right there and pour you soup and tell you ridiculous stories about my pack until you say yes or fall asleep, whichever comes first.”

Felix stared at him a long time. Then he nodded, once. The healers worked quickly; Chan held Felix’s hand and told him about a pup who tried to steal an entire honeycomb and came back glittering with bees. By the time they had wrapped the raw wrist and cleaned the cuts, Felix’s breathing had smoothed into something like a rhythm instead of a fight.

“Soup,” Chan said softly, trading places with a healer to lift a bowl. Steam curled up, carrying chicken and rice, ginger, and that same cedar from Chan’s skin, as if the den itself had learned his scent and wanted to help. He fed Felix in small spoons, waiting between each mouthful until the tremor in his lip left. Outside, the storm wandered off to bother other mountains. Inside, the fire thought about singing.

“Why… me?” Felix asked, when the bowl was half-gone. The question peered past the rim with big eyes: Why carry me? Why defend me in front of your law? Why choose the soft path in a kingdom that respects teeth?

Chan set the bowl aside. “Because you survived a night that kills kings,” he said. “Because I had a choice, and I chose you. Because a crown is only worth the hands it makes gentler.”

Felix’s eyes shone, wet and angry about it. He bit his lip, then let out a breath like a secret. “They will come for me.”

“Then they come to our door,” Chan said. “And they learn the den I keep.”

Silence tilted into trust by a fraction. It was enough to build on.

Later, when Felix’s lashes fluttered heavy and the healers had gone to brew more tea, Chan built a little nest at the foot of the bed—furs and the softest woven blankets, a corner shaped like belonging. He didn’t crowd. He didn’t loom. He simply folded his cloak—a king’s cloak, storm-salted, cedar-safe—and laid it within arm’s reach.

Felix’s fingers drifted toward it like a needle finding north.

“Sleep,” Chan murmured.

“Will you—” Felix started, then flushed. The words tangled. He tried again, smaller. “Stay?”

Chan smiled, something unkingly and human. He pulled a chair beside the bed and sat, elbows on knees, hands loose. “As long as you want me,” he said, and let his scent settle again: not a command, just a hearth.

Felix closed his eyes. For the first time in a long road of wrong doors, he slept without bracing for the hinge.

When the moon climbed the far peak, Chan rose and crossed to the open window. Snow glow made the room a soft kind of silver. He looked back at the omega the mountain had given him and, without ceremony or witness, made a quiet vow.

“I will not take what is not offered. I will not trade safety for obedience. I will keep the den you choose,” he said to the night, and the night, sure as old wolves, kept his words.

Behind him, Felix shifted, a small sound in his throat—content, unsure, alive. Somewhere in the pines, a lone wolf sang. It was not a challenge.

It was a welcome.

Chapter Text

Felix woke to the sound of quiet.

Not silence—never that. Silence, he knew, was the held breath before a blow. This was something else: the low murmur of voices beyond a door, the soft pop and sigh of a well-fed fire, the faint clink of pottery as someone set something down and was careful not to let it ring.

Warmth lay over him like a second skin. For a split second his body panicked anyway, muscles trying to curl small, lungs snatching a sharp breath—where am I, what did I do, what do they want—

“Easy.”

The voice cut through the spike of fear like a hand smoothing a ruffled pelt. Soft, low, familiar in a way it had no right to be after one storm-ripped night.

Felix blinked. The ceiling above him was carved wood, beams crossing like branches, painted with faded constellations. The air smelled of smoke, thyme, clean linen, and under that—a steady line—cedar and winter tea.

The Wolf King sat in a chair pulled close to the bed, elbows braced on his knees, chin hovering over folded hands. His hair had dried in soft, slightly wild curls; there was a faint red mark where his cloak’s clasp had caught his collarbone. He looked tired around the eyes in the way of someone who had stayed when he could have left.

“You’re safe,” Chan said, and didn’t reach for him. He just let the words sit there, plain and unmarred. “You’re in the High Den. Healers’ wing.”

Felix swallowed. His throat scraped, sore from cold and disuse and, maybe, a muffled scream or two he wasn’t going to think about.

“Water?” Chan nodded to the small table at Felix’s side. A clay cup waited there, steam ghosting from its lip.

“Please,” Felix rasped, then flinched at his own voice. Too loud. Too needy.

Chan didn’t act like it was. He rose, slow enough that Felix’s hackles had time to decide not to lift, and poured water from a squat jug into the cup. Only once he’d set it on the table beside Felix did he pause.

“May I…” He gestured lightly. “Help you sit, or would you rather do it yourself?”

No one had ever asked him that before. Felix’s brain tripped over it.

“I—I can,” he said, out of habit more than certainty. He tried to push himself up on his elbows. Pain sparked along his ribs, a dull, protesting ache. The world rocked.

Chan’s hand hovered over his shoulder, not quite touching. “Breathe,” the King murmured. “I’ve got you if you want me to.”

It was the if that undid him. Not the King, not the warmth, not the waking in an unfamiliar bed. The way the choice kept being set gently in his lap like something that belonged to him.

Felix let out a shaky breath. “Okay,” he whispered. “Y-you can help.”

The hand settled, careful pressure guiding him upright, taking some of the strain from his abused muscles. Chan’s touch was warm but not hot, steady but not pinning. Once Felix was propped against a nest of pillows—had those been there before?—Chan eased back again, giving him space.

“Here,” Chan said, wrapping Felix’s fingers around the cup, his own hands withdrawing the instant Felix had a good grip. The water smelled faintly of mint. “Small sips. Your throat’s been through enough heroics.”

Felix could have laughed at that, if it didn’t hurt so much. Heroics. Right.

The first swallow burned. The second soothed. By the third, he could breathe without feeling like he was trying to swallow sand.

Only then did he let his gaze really travel. The room felt like a den—rounded edges, soft rugs on stone floors, a hearth built with more care than grandeur. A low shelf held folded cloths, bundles of herbs, a wooden box etched with simple protective runes. Near the bed, someone had dragged extra furs and blankets into a kind of half-nest, as if instinct had guided busy hands.

His gaze snagged on the dark weight at the edge of the arrangement—Chan’s cloak, neatly folded where Felix could reach it without effort.

“You—” Felix’s voice wobbled. “You stayed.”

Chan’s mouth tipped into a small, crooked smile. “Storm was ugly,” he said. “Figured it’d be rude to dump you on the healers and disappear.”

Felix frowned at his lap. “I mean… after. When it stopped.”

“Oh.” Chan rolled his shoulders, as if the memory of the long night had settled there. “Yeah. Well. You asked me to.”

Heat bloomed up Felix’s neck as fragments of the night before flickered through his mind—the firelight, the spoon at his lips, the way he’d almost asked and then the words had tumbled out in a whisper: Will you stay?

“You’re the King,” Felix muttered, twisting the edge of the blanket between his fingers. “Kings don’t… stay.”

“They do in my den,” Chan said simply. “Besides, the moon would probably glare at me if I walked out on her guest.”

Felix blinked. “The… moon?”

Chan’s eyes softened. He lowered himself back into the chair, leaning back this time, giving Félix a less concentrated dose of his presence. “You picked a bad night to get lost on our mountain,” he said. “The pass you were on doesn’t… forgive easily. I’ve seen warriors go over the edge because they took one careless step.”

Felix’s chest tightened. I took a lot of careless steps, he thought, but didn’t say.

“You didn’t die,” Chan continued. “You lived long enough for the storm to spit you up at my feet, and long enough for me to drag you back. That’s… unusual.”

Felix stared at him, the blanket clutched in his fists. “So what? You think your moon owes me something?”

Chan shook his head. “I think,” he said slowly, “that I owe the moon for the chance to do something right. That’s what I mean when I say The Moon’s Debt.” His gaze met Felix’s, steady and open. “She gave you into my hands. My debt is to treat that as a gift, not a burden.”

No one had ever called him a gift before, either.

His eyes stung. He looked away quickly, throat tightening. “You don’t even know me.”

“No,” Chan agreed. “That’s today’s work, if you’re willing.”

Felix’s heart tripped. “Work?”

“Light duty,” Chan said with mock gravity. “Eat some soup. Tell me a little about yourself. Correct me when I inevitably mispronounce something. Possibly judge my sense of humor.”

The corner of Felix’s mouth twitched before he could stop it. “I already did,” he muttered. “In my head.”

“Ah, good. A head critic.” Chan reached for the tray Felix hadn’t noticed on the low table—a deep bowl, its surface a soft shimmer of steam. “Hate to disappoint the reviews. You up for a bit of food?”

Felix’s stomach answered before his pride could. It let out a loud, miserable growl.

Chan’s eyebrows arched. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”

He brought the tray closer, resting it across his own knees instead of Felix’s. The bowl smelled like the night before—chicken, rice, ginger, a hint of something bitter that meant medicine and care. Chan stirred it once, letting it cool.

“It’s not drugged,” Felix blurted, then winced. “Sorry. That’s… that was rude.”

Chan’s face didn’t change. “Reasonable,” he said lightly. “You’ve had a bad run. I won’t take it personally if your brain checks for teeth on everything.”

Felix’s fingers clenched in the blanket. “There were… sedatives. In the broth. Before. When someone wanted me… quiet.”

The flicker in Chan’s eyes wasn’t pity; it was something harder, tempered. He set the spoon down deliberately. “Thank you for telling me,” he said. “I’ll show you what’s in it.”

He reached for the bowl, angling it so Felix could see. Simple ingredients, no strange powders. Then he lifted a small, carved wooden box from the tray, opened it, and tipped its contents into his palm. A pinch of dried herbs and a few thin shavings of something pale.

“Thyme and willow-bark,” Chan said. “For pain and fever. Our healers don’t add anything stronger without a clear need and consent. I made sure they understood that, regarding you.”

Felix stared at his palm. At the uncomplicated honesty of it. “You trust me not to throw it in your face?”

Chan’s mouth quirked. “I am the King,” he said. “I’ve had worse thrown at me.”

The joke slipped in like sunshine between clouds. Felix’s shoulders dropped by a fraction.

“I… I believe you,” he said softly. “About the soup.”

“Good.” Chan dusted his hands off, tipped the herbs back into the broth, and stirred. “Now, we can do this a few ways. You can try holding it yourself, we can prop it on a board, or I can feed you again like last night. Your call.”

Felix hesitated. The idea of lifting the bowl with his still-trembling hands made him tired just thinking about it. But the thought of being fed again, of sitting there and opening his mouth like a child—

Chan must have seen the war on his face. “We can also switch halfway,” he added gently. “You let me help until you’re bored of my face, then you take over. No shame either way.”

“You say a lot of things like that,” Felix muttered, words slipping out. “No shame either way. Your body is yours. Your call. Is that some kind of—” He swallowed. “Is that a den rule or something?”

Chan tilted his head, considering. “It is now,” he said. “I grew up watching a lot of people pretend they didn’t mind things they clearly minded, because someone in power told them they were lucky. I decided, when the crown landed on me, that luck should stop being a weapon.”

Felix’s heart did that painful tight-loose thing again. He looked down at his bandaged wrist. “Okay,” he whispered. “Half and half. If… if that’s alright.”

“Perfect,” Chan said, like Felix had just negotiated a trade deal. “Let’s start with me.”

He lifted a spoonful, waited until Felix nodded, then held it out. Felix opened his mouth, cheeks burning, but the broth hit his tongue and his embarrassment drowned under the relief of warmth and flavor and care. This close, Chan’s scent curled around him like a hearth: cedar, tea, a faint wild edge like pine sap.

They settled into a rhythm—spoon, swallow, breath. Chan didn’t watch him like a hawk, tracking every flinch; he watched him like a person, talking lightly about the den, the weather, a young pack member who’d tried to race a snowdrift and lost.

“So,” Chan said after a while, somewhere between spoon eight and nine. “Last night, you told me your name was Felix. Still true today?”

Felix blinked. “Still… true?”

“Some people change,” Chan said. “Runaways, especially. Names can be like cloaks—they don’t always fit forever. I’m giving you a chance to tell me if the one you gave me was the one you want me to use. No pressure.”

Felix stared at him, spoon halfway to his mouth. Then, slowly, he nodded. “Felix is mine,” he said. “They…” His throat closed on the memory. “They tried to call me other things. Pet names. Titles. I don’t… want those here.”

“Done,” Chan said immediately. “No pet names you don’t choose. No titles unless you ask.” He lifted one shoulder. “Though some of the grandmothers will insist on calling you ‘dear’ or ‘child’ if you stand still long enough. I’ve tried to stop them. It’s impossible.”

The mental image of stern, braid-heavy elders cooing at anyone was so at odds with Felix’s expectations that a startled sound broke out of him—a short, fractured laugh. Chan’s answering smile was bright and startled, like catching a fox cub peeking around a tree.

“There it is,” the King murmured, pleased. “I was wondering what your laugh sounded like when it wasn’t trying to apologize for existing.”

Felix ducked his head, embarrassed and warmed all at once. “And you?” he mumbled, chasing the subject away from himself. “Should I keep calling you… the Wolf King?”

Chan made a face. “Only if you want to watch me die of secondhand formality,” he said. “Chan is fine. Or Chris, if you like that better. My mother uses both when she’s trying to embarrass me in public.”

“Chris,” Felix repeated quietly, testing the shape of it. It felt… casual, intimate in a different way than Your Majesty. “I… I think I’ll stick with Chan. For now.”

“Honored,” Chan said solemnly, but his eyes were warm. “Once you’re up to walking, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the den properly. For now, the healers and I have made an agreement: we’ll all pretend you can’t get out of this bed until your fever’s gone.”

“I don’t have a fever,” Felix protested on reflex.

Chan reached over—not to his forehead, but to the bedside table, where a small glass rod rested. He passed it to Felix. “Humor me,” he said. “Put that under your tongue. It’ll glow if you’re lying.”

Felix squinted at the rod, suspicious, then did as told. It tasted faintly of lemon. After a few breaths, the tip flared a pale, embarrassed gold.

Chan chuckled. “Not the worst I’ve seen, but enough to keep you grounded,” he said. “The healers will be in soon with more salve. After that, if you’ve still got room, we can try some bread.”

Felix rolled the glass between his fingers, watching the glow slowly fade. “Why are you doing this?” he asked suddenly. “Personally, I mean. You could have… delegated. Sent someone else.”

Chan looked down at his hands, flexing them once, as if remembering the weight they’d carried the night before. When he spoke, his voice had lost some of its teasing.

“Because power means I can,” he said. “If I were a hunter, maybe all I could offer would be the jacket off my back and the last of my rations. If I were a healer, I’d offer herbs and hands. I have a crown. It lets me decide what my den values. I want them to see that we don’t throw away people the storm almost took.”

He lifted his gaze again, meeting Felix’s. “And because I remember being young and scared and waiting for someone in charge to act like I mattered,” he added, softer. “I don’t want anyone in my mountain to feel like that again if I can help it.”

Felix’s vision blurred. He blinked hard. “You talk like… like I’m part of that ‘anyone’ now,” he whispered.

“You’re on the mountain,” Chan said, like it was simple. “The mountain is mine to keep. That makes you mine to protect, for as long as you want the protection.”

The word mine should have sent a cold shiver down his spine. Instead, something warm unfurled in his chest, unfamiliar and terrifying in its gentleness.

“What if I… leave?” Felix asked. “Once I’m better.”

Chan’s lips quirked with something like sadness, something like respect. “Then my duty is to make sure you’re strong enough to walk out with your head up and enough supplies that you don’t end up in another storm,” he said. “My debt to the moon doesn’t hinge on whether you stay. It hinges on how I treat you while you’re here.”

Felix pressed his fingers to his bandaged wrist. The skin beneath throbbed, a memory of a ribbon torn off in haste. “You’re very…” He groped for a word. “Stubborn. About this debt.”

Chan laughed, an easy, wolfish sound. “Ask anyone in the den,” he said. “They’ll tell you I’m insufferable about keeping my word.”

“Insufferable,” Felix echoed, rolling the syllables around like a stone in his mouth. “Okay. I… I think I can live with that.”

“Good,” Chan said. “Now, how about we test your strength?” He shifted the tray closer. “Want to try holding the bowl for a bit? I promise not to be offended if you hand it back in two seconds.”

Felix took a breath. His arms still felt like someone had replaced his muscles with wet rope, but… he wanted to try. Wanted to stake some small claim over his own body that wasn’t just surviving.

“Alright,” he said. “But if I spill it, that’s your fault for trusting me.”

“Deal,” Chan said, eyes crinkling. He carefully transferred the warm bowl into Felix’s hands, steadying it until Felix’s grip felt firm. Then he let go.

The weight was… a lot. Felix’s fingers trembled, but the bowl stayed upright. Chan didn’t hover, didn’t brace his hands under Felix’s. He just sat where he was, ready, watching without crowding.

“See?” Chan said quietly. “Already doing more than you thought you could.”

Felix swallowed, throat tight in a new way. “You don’t know what I think.”

“I’m learning,” Chan said. “One name, one bowl, one ridiculous metaphor at a time.”

Felix snorted, the sound half a laugh. “Do you… do you talk like this all the time?”

“Only when I’m awake,” Chan deadpanned. “Ask the Elders. They’re very tired.”

Felix’s smile stuck this time, small but real. The bowl shook less in his hands as he lifted it toward his mouth. The first self-directed sip was awkward and nearly ended in disaster, but Chan only leaned forward a fraction, hands ready without swooping in.

The broth slid down warm and bright and earned. Felix lowered the bowl with a shaky exhale.

“There you go,” Chan murmured. “That’s you. Not the storm. Not me. You.”

Felix looked down at his hands, at the fine tremors and the unspilled soup. For the first time since the snow had closed around him, he believed—just a little—that maybe his body wasn’t only good at taking damage. It could also hold warmth. Hold food. Hold a life.

“Felix,” Chan said suddenly, breaking the quiet. “Do you know what your name means?”

Felix blinked. “It’s… it’s old language,” he said slowly. “Someone told me once. I forgot.”

“Lucky,” Chan said. “Or happy, depending on who you ask.”

The word lodged in his chest. Lucky. Happy. He wanted to argue. To list all the many ways his life had been neither. But the King had pulled him from a death pass, sat by his bed, shown him herb by herb what went into his soup, and handed him back the weight of his own body like it was something precious.

Maybe the meaning didn’t have to apply to his past. Maybe it could apply to something else.

“Do you believe in that sort of thing?” Felix asked, voice barely above a whisper. “Names. Meanings.”

“I believe in making them true,” Chan said. “Not by force. By… environment.” He gestured around the room. “If your name says ‘lucky,’ then the least I can do is build you a place where luck has a fighting chance.”

Felix’s eyes burned again. He ducked his head, pretending to focus on balancing the bowl. “That’s a lot of work,” he said. “For someone you just met.”

Chan’s gaze was steady, no hesitation in it. “You’re worth working for,” he said simply.

The words landed heavier than any crown.

Felix didn’t answer. He didn’t trust his voice not to crack. Instead, he took another sip of soup, then another, until the bowl was light enough that his hands shook from exhaustion more than weight.

Without comment, Chan rose and took it from him, setting it aside.

“You did well,” he said. “I’m going to bring the healers in for a quick look. After that, if you’re up for it, I’ll teach you the names of a few people who will be in and out of this room in the next few days. That way it isn’t just strangers’ hands.”

Felix nodded, relief and anxiety tangling. “Okay.”

“And if it gets to be too much,” Chan added, “just say, ‘enough for today.’ That’s one of my favorite den rules.”

Felix looked at him. “You… have a rule like that?”

“I do now,” Chan said. “We’re very progressive. Start with one omega and a bowl of soup, next thing you know the whole den is insisting on boundaries. It’s chaos.”

Felix laughed again, a wet, cracked sound that still somehow felt like an exhale. He lay back against the pillows as Chan moved to the door, his scent trailing after him like the last smile at the end of a long day.

At the threshold, the Wolf King paused. “Felix?”

“Mm?” Felix hummed, already sinking into the heavy warmth of his blankets.

“Thank you,” Chan said.

Felix blinked. “For… what?”

“For letting me start paying my debt,” Chan replied. “To the moon. To you. Names go both ways.”

Before Felix could think of what to say to that, the door opened, and a healer’s soft footsteps entered on a breeze of lavender. Chan’s scent receded down the hall, but the warmth he’d left behind didn’t go with him.

Felix closed his eyes as gentle hands checked his pulse, his bandages, his fever. Outside, the mountain held its snow-silent breath. Inside, in a room carved into its heart, an omega with a name that meant lucky started, cautiously, to believe that maybe he hadn’t run out of luck after all.

Chapter Text

The second time Felix woke, it was to the sound of bells.

They weren’t harsh alarm bells, the kind that meant fire or attack. These were deeper, slower—three notes spaced like breaths, resonating through the stone in a way he felt more in his bones than in his ears.

Felix lay still, letting the vibrations settle. His body felt… different. Less like a bundle of raw nerves, more like himself under a heavy blanket. His wrist throbbed dully. His ribs protested if he breathed too deep. But his head was clearer. No snow in his lungs. No wind trying to yank him off a cliff.

The healer wing was quieter than before. Some of the beds along the far wall were empty, sheets stripped; others held sleeping figures turned away, their breaths slow and even. Between the rows, a few robed healers moved in soft, practised arcs, checking pulses, changing bandages, whispering reassurance.

A tiny shape perched on the stool by his bed, legs swinging. A girl—no older than ten, maybe—dark hair in two plaits, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She was reading from a board scratched with symbols, lips moving as she sounded them out. A little glass bead on a cord around her neck glowed faintly blue.

When Felix shifted, the bead flickered. The girl startled, then broke into a grin.

“You’re awake!” she whispered loudly, as if sharing a secret with the whole room. “Good. I told Master Hane it was today.”

Felix blinked at her. “You… told…?”

“That you’d wake up proper-talking, not mumble-talking.” She scooted closer, board hugged to her chest. “I’m Mira. I help in the healer wing after lessons.” She lowered her voice, eyes widening. “Are you really the storm omega?”

Heat crawled up Felix’s neck. “I… don’t know what that is.”

She tilted her head. “You fell out of a blizzard and the King carried you in,” she recited, like quoting a ballad. “Elder Hane said that means the moon spat you into his arms on purpose and now she’s watching to see if he does a good job.”

Felix half-choked. “He… said that?”

“Well.” Mira’s nose scrunched. “He grumbled it into his tea. That counts.”

Before Felix could think what to do with that information, soft footsteps approached. An older healer—white streaks in his braids, lines around his eyes from squinting at too-small stitches—arrived with a wry look.

“Mira, are you bothering our guest?” he asked.

“I’m helping!” she said, scandalized. “He was lonely.”

Felix opened his mouth to deny that and then closed it. “She’s… fine,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

Hane’s gaze softened as it skimmed over Felix: the clearer eyes, the less-pinched mouth, the way he was sitting up on his own now. “Good,” he said. “If she becomes too much, you have my permission to drown her in herbal tea.”

Mira stuck out her tongue at him but obediently hopped down. “They’re calling the Circle,” she told Felix in a rush of words. “That’s what the bells mean. The Elders and the King have to talk about Important Things.” She made the last words big and round, like they were capitalized. “So I wanted to talk to you before they straighten his face back into Serious.”

Felix’s fingers twitched in the blanket. “Important things like…?”

“Like you,” Hane said calmly, untying the bandage on Felix’s wrist. “Mira. The supply room, if you please.”

She deflated a little, clearly torn between curiosity and obedience. “Fine,” she sighed. “I’ll bring the good salve.”

As she scampered off, Hane checked Felix’s pulse, touched his forehead with the back of his hand, then glanced at the hanging thermometer rod. Its tip glowed a soft, healthier yellow rather than last time’s embarrassed gold.

“Fever’s easing,” he noted. “How’s your pain?”

“Manageable,” Felix said. “Um. Thank you. For… everything.”

“You can thank the King if you like,” Hane said dryly. “He’s the one insisting we write down every herb we feed you so he can swear he didn’t trick you into trusting him.”

Felix’s stomach flipped. “He told you—?”

“—that consent is to be treated as seriously as dosage,” Hane finished for him, eyes kind. “We’re still arguing over how to fit that into our records, but I suspect he’ll get his way. He usually does.”

The bells sounded again—three deep notes. Hane’s gaze flicked toward the ceiling.

“The Circle,” Felix said quietly. “They’re going to talk about me.”

Hane’s hands were steady on his wrist. “They’re going to talk about a lot of things,” he corrected. “You among them. That’s the Elders’ nature. They chew everything until it’s pulp.”

Felix tried to laugh and didn’t quite manage it. “And what are they going to… decide?”

Hane finished re-wrapping his wrist, tying the knot with neat fingers. “That is for the King,” he said. “And for you, when you’re ready.”

When he left to answer a healer’s call, the word stuck in Felix’s mind like a burr: for you.

He stared at the stone ceiling until the next set of bells faded, wondering what a room full of braided, law-heavy Elders would make of him. A stray. A storm omega. A problem dropped in their King’s arms by a capricious moon.

What they would say about what should be done to fix that problem.

⸻

The Circle Chamber sat high in the mountain’s spine, lanters swinging gently from the rafters. The room itself was round—of course it was—with a wide skylight in the center. Today, the glass was a pale clouded grey, the storm’s remnants smeared against it like a half-wiped slate.

Elders filled the carved seats ringing the chamber in a rough cascade of silver-touched braids and woven sashes. Some leaned on staffs etched with old wolf-teeth patterns; others had their hands folded, worn fingers worrying prayer beads. At the far side, a few younger councilors stood with tablets and styluses, ready to make a record.

Bang Chan stood in the center, cloak traded for a simple den-coat, hair tied back. He looked annoyingly young for a king in a room of history, but his gaze was steady, shoulders relaxed in the stance of someone who’d done this dance before and had no intention of tripping.

Elder Hane took his seat with a faint grunt, nodding once when Chan’s gaze brushed past him. Two others—Elder Myr, with braids thick as rope, and Elder Sarin, with eyes like chipped flint—sat closer to the front.

Myr rose without ceremony. “The Circle is gathered,” she said. “The bells have rung.” Her gaze sharpened on Chan. “You have brought a stray into our halls, Wolf King. We would have the story.”

A stray. Chan kept his expression neutral. “Last night,” he said, projecting his voice without shouting, “I went to the south pass after the watchers reported a body on the lower ledge. I found an omega half-buried in snow, injured, feverish, and branded by a clan that doesn’t walk these mountains.”

A ripple of murmurs. One councilor scribbled faster.

Sarin’s mouth tightened. “Branded?”

Chan nodded, jaw tightening. “A ribbon mark, torn off in haste. Skin broken. Healing now.”

“Ah,” Myr said grimly. “Claimed, then discarded. Or stolen.”

“Or escaped,” Hane added quietly.

“That too,” Chan said. “I carried him in. Our healers can speak to his condition if you wish, but the core is this: he was not going to survive another hour on that ledge. Leaving him there was not an option.”

Sarin’s gaze was hard. “We do not question pulling a body out of a storm,” he said. “We question bringing its complications to our hearth.”

Chan smiled thinly. “The complications were already on our mountain,” he said. “I merely relocated them from a ravine to a bed.”

A few of the younger councilors hid startled smiles behind their hands. Myr’s eyes crinkled, just a little.

“And what do you propose?” she asked. “We’ll have a foreign clan at our door soon enough, sniffing for missing property. Without a formal claim, they could argue the omega is theirs to reclaim, storm or no.”

Chan felt the room shift around that word: property. The air sharpened, teeth behind polite mouths.

“He is not property,” Chan said. Not thunderous, not dramatic. Stated. “He is a person under our roof.”

“And yet,” Sarin said, never one to let go of a thread, “foreign packs do not see it that way. They have their laws. We have our own. We must decide how far we are willing to bend before something breaks.”

“If we bow our necks to another pack’s cruelty,” Hane murmured, “something has already broken.”

Myr rapped her knuckles lightly on the arm of her chair. “Enough,” she said. “This is not a philosophy circle. We have a problem to solve. Wolf King. You have options.”

She ticked them off on her fingers, each one an old, familiar path.

“First,” she said. “You make a political claim. Public, recognized by the Circle. You bite, bond, or at the very least mark the omega with your crest. Then, if another clan comes, we show them the law: he is yours now, under the King’s protection. They may grumble, but they will not press it.” Her gaze sharpened. “It would also, incidentally, solve a number of… other questions the den has about your lack of consort.”

Chan’s shoulders stayed loose, but his stomach curled. “No.”

A susurration of whispers. Sarin’s brows shot up. “You refuse to claim defenseless blood? When it would protect him and shore up your line?”

“I refuse to treat mating like a legal shield,” Chan said. “I will not bite someone because it’s convenient.”

“Convenience?” Sarin scoffed. “You mistake necessity for indulgence, Your Majesty. We are not asking you to share a bed. We are asking you to put your teeth between him and danger.”

Chan’s jaw clenched. “Teeth and bonds are not the same thing.”

Myr raised a hand. “We will not settle your love life today,” she said, to a few dry chuckles. “Our second option?”

“Return him,” one of the more rigid councilors said quickly. “Send a runner. Find his clan. Inform them he survived, and hand him back according to old road law. We are not a refuge for every wounded creature that crosses our snow.”

Chan’s head snapped toward him. “We are exactly that,” he said coldly. “Or have the stories been lying to our pups for the last hundred winters?”

The councilor flushed, but Myr spoke before he could retort. “If we hand him back,” she said, “we risk bolstering a clan that treats its omegas as property. If we refuse, we risk a diplomatic souring.”

“There is also the omega’s will,” Hane said. “We do not know if he wishes to go back.”

Sarin snorted. “He’s injured, frightened, and grateful. He will say whatever makes the hand that feeds him happy. That is the nature of bonds.”

“Only if the hand demands it,” Chan said.

He drew a breath, feeling all their gazes on him. The skylight’s weak daylight pressed down. In a different life, a different king’s skin, this would be simple: take the omega, mark him, use him as a pawn and call it protection. But he’d seen what that kind of simplicity did. The way it turned people into debts and touch into obligation.

“I will not claim him,” he said again, clearly. “Not for politics. Not for law’s convenience. I won’t put my crest on his skin until and unless he asks me to.”

Sarin’s teeth flashed, not in a smile. “You would risk war over sentiment?”

“It’s not sentiment,” Chan said quietly. “It’s principle.”

Myr watched him for a long moment. “Principle does not keep the passes clear when armies march,” she said. “We must have something that does.”

Chan inclined his head. “We do,” he said. “Our law.”

He stepped forward, letting his voice carry, not with volume but with certainty.

“By the oldest den oaths,” he said, “we recognise three statuses for those under our roof: Pack, Guest, and Threat. A pack member is ours. A threat is not. A guest is… in between. Not kin, but not quarry. Under our protection for a time.”

Myr’s brows lifted. “The guest-rules are for caravans, traders, pilgrims. Passing feet, not half-dead strays.”

“Then it is time we remember why the rule was written,” Chan said. “We carved it into law paper because one of my ancestors refused to hand a hungry child back to the lord who’d beaten him. When that lord came with armed men, the den stood Witan’s guest. The guest left when he was grown, yes—but he left with choices.” His gaze swept the circle. “We like to tell that story as proof that our mountain is kinder than the valley chains. Let’s see if that’s still true.”

Sarin folded his arms. “And you propose…?”

“I declare the omega a Guest of the Moon,” Chan said, feeling the shape of the words settle like a stone in a river’s course. “Under my personal guard and the den’s hospitality. No one touches him without his consent. No one removes him from the mountain by force. If a clan comes claiming ownership, we greet them on the pass and we tell them this: while he is under our roof, he is no one’s property.”

Silence, sharp and stunned.

“You would bind the entire den to your sentiment,” Sarin said. “For one stray?”

Chan’s mouth twisted. “You keep using that word,” he said. “As if the storm spat out refuse.” He shook his head. “He is not a stray. He is Felix.”

A ripple spread at the use of the name. Names had weight here.

Hane’s eyes warmed. Myr’s fingers drummed on her chair. “Do you understand,” she said slowly, “that by naming him so in Circle, you elevate him? If you call him Felix Guest-of-the-Moon, the den will remember. So will our enemies.”

“Good,” Chan said. “Let word spread. If a clan wants to challenge our law, they can do so in the open, not by dragging someone half-frozen off a ledge.”

“And if he asks to leave?” Hane asked, though Chan already knew his answer.

“Then we equip him,” Chan said simply. “We open the gates. We remember that people are not trophies to be hoarded to prove our generosity.”

Myr looked up at the skylight. Snowflakes, lazy and late, tapped against the glass. “You are young for a king,” she said. “Young kings like to test laws until they break.”

“I like to find where they bend,” Chan said.

She huffed; it might have been a laugh, buried deep. “Very well,” she said. “We will put this to a vote.”

Sarin’s mouth thinned. “You would indulge this—”

“I would test the den’s stomach for the stories we tell our children,” Myr snapped, sharper than before. “We sing of mercy and shelter as if they are toothless. Let us see if we mean them.”

One by one, the Elders touched fingers to their heart, then to the carved wolf-teeth on their chairs.

“For Guest of the Moon status,” Myr called. “Bound by den law, not by bite. Speak.”

Hane’s voice came first. “Aye.”

“Aye,” another echoed.

Several more followed, not unanimous but steady. A few hung back; two muttered “Nay” under their breath, Sarin among them. But when the last voice fell silent, the weight was clear.

Myr inclined her head to Chan. “The Circle recognises Felix as Guest of the Moon,” she said formally. “Protected but unclaimed. So recorded.”

The younger councilors scratched faster, ink biting into parchment.

Sarin sat back, eyes flinty. “If this ends poorly,” he said, “remember that mercy also has teeth. When a guest bites the hand that shelters him, do you still refuse to collar him?”

“Yes,” Chan said. “Because the hand remembers it is not a chain.”

He held Sarin’s gaze until the Elder looked away.

The bells sounded again—once, this time. Decision made.

As the Circle broke into smaller knots of discussion, Hane rose and came down to the chamber’s floor.

“He will hear rumors before he hears it from you if you dawdle,” the healer said mildly.

“I’m going,” Chan said.

Hane’s gaze flicked over him, noting the set of his shoulders, the lines of tiredness starting at the corners of his eyes. “You look like you’ve bitten stone,” he observed. “Perhaps eat something softer before you talk to the boy, hmm?”

Chan’s mouth kicked into a brief, humorless smile. “I’ll steal some biscuits from the healers’ stash.”

“Take two,” Hane said. “He’ll pretend he doesn’t want one, then you’ll feel guilty eating alone.”

⸻

In the healer wing, gossip traveled faster than herbs.

Mira was by Felix’s bed again, this time pretending to dust a shelf while very obviously straining to listen to a cluster of nurses near the door.

“They’re calling him Guest-of-the-Moon,” one nurse whispered. “In Circle. I heard from my cousin’s cousin who carries water there.”

“That’s not a real title,” another scoffed gently.

“It is if the King says it in front of the Elders,” the first retorted. “You know how it works. Words harden into law if you carve them deep enough.”

Felix tried not to listen, which meant of course he heard everything.

Guest-of-the-Moon.

It sounded like something from a storybook, some noble traveler wrapped in starlight—not a shivering, half-broken omega who’d nearly bled out into a snowdrift. He could feel his pulse in his bandaged wrist, in the bruise along his ribs.

Guest. Protected. But not… claimed.

Was that better? Safer? Or did it just paint a brighter target on him for whoever had lost their “property”?

His chest started to tighten. He forced his gaze down, focusing on the blanket’s weave. In other places, other packs, guest could just mean temporary. Use, then discard. Feed the body, ignore the heart.

“Breathe,” Mira stage-whispered, suddenly close. “You’re doing the face. Master Hane says if someone does the face you have to give them something to hold.”

He blinked at her. “The… face?”

She mimicked him—eyes wide, jaw tight, mouth pinched like he was swallowing something sharp. It was unfairly accurate.

Before he could come up with a reply, footsteps approached. Familiar ones, padded with deliberate softness. Chan’s scent reached him a heartbeat before the man himself did: cedar, winter tea, a thread of cold air and ink.

Mira straightened. “Your Majesty,” she chirped.

“Conspirator,” Chan greeted back, ruffling her hair as he passed. He nodded to the nurses, accepted their bows with a faint smile, and then turned his full attention to Felix.

“Hey,” he said gently. “How’s the morning treating you?”

Felix searched his face for clues—anger, guilt, calculation—but found only tired warmth.

“I heard the bells,” Felix said instead of answering. His voice felt thin. “And… things. Guest-of-the-Moon?”

Chan winced, not from regret but from the speed of gossip. “News travels fast on short legs,” he said, flicking a glance at Mira, who did her best impression of innocence and failed. “I was hoping to tell you myself before the rumor mill did, but—” He spread his hands. “—the den is very fond of new stories.”

Felix’s fingers twisted in the blanket. “So it’s true?”

“Yes,” Chan said. “It’s true.”

He pulled the stool closer and sat, not quite so close as last time, as if giving Felix room to bolt if he needed to.

“The Elders wanted me to claim you,” Chan said, not bothering to soften the edges. “Bite, mark, play consort for politics. Or hand you back to whoever left you in that storm.”

Felix’s throat constricted. Shame and something like nausea curdled in his gut. “And you…?”

“I said no.”

The words landed heavy in the space between them.

“You said… no,” Felix repeated slowly. “To… all of it?”

“To claiming you without your consent,” Chan said. “To treating you like a pawn in anyone’s game, including mine. To handing you back to people who branded you like stock.” His eyes darkened. “I don’t know your full story. I don’t need to know it to decide that.”

Felix stared at him. His heartbeat thudded in his ears. “They’re not going to be happy about that,” he said, meaning the Elders, the foreign clan, the faceless They that always seemed to loom.

“Some aren’t,” Chan said. “That’s alright. Law isn’t for making everyone comfortable.”

Felix tried to laugh and ended up making a small, broken sound. “You talk about law like it’s supposed to be kind.”

“It is,” Chan said quietly. “Or it’s just someone’s cudgel with pretty words carved into it.”

Felix swallowed. “So… Guest-of-the-Moon means what, exactly? I’m… here on holiday?” The joke was brittle but he tried anyway.

Chan’s mouth softened. “It means you’re under den law as a guest in my care,” he said. “Not property. Not pack—not yet, unless you choose that. But no one gets to drag you out of here against your will. If someone comes saying they own you, we deal with them at the gate. You don’t have to stand in front of them and beg to be believed.”

Felix’s vision blurred. He blinked hard. “And if I… want to leave?” he forced out. “Later. When I can walk.”

“Then we prepare you,” Chan said. “Supplies. Routes. Safe houses, if you’ll take them. I meant it when I said the mountain is to keep you safe, not to trap you.”

Tears burned at the back of Felix’s eyes now, and he hated it, hated how easy it was for this strange, stubborn King to knock him off balance with a few plain sentences.

“You keep saying it like it’s—like I’m allowed to want things,” Felix whispered. “Like my choice… matters.”

“It does,” Chan said. “It’s the only way any of this means anything.”

Felix pressed his bandaged wrist into the mattress, grounding himself. “And if I… chose to be—” He broke off, cheeks flaming.

Chan didn’t rescue him. He just waited, gaze open.

“If I chose to be… pack,” Felix managed, voice barely audible. “Or… more. Someday. Would that be… convenience?” The word tasted bitter.

Chan’s eyes softened in a way that made Felix’s stomach flip. “If you chose that, it would be the opposite of convenience,” he said. “It would be the hardest yes I’ve ever had to hold, because it would come with all your history and fear and hope attached. It would mean rebuilding what others broke. That isn’t neat or easy. But it would be yours. That’s what would make it worth anything.”

Felix shut his eyes. For a moment, the room spun—past and present tangling. Voices telling him he was lucky to be chosen, to be collared, to be petted. That his no meant nothing if it inconvenienced someone more powerful.

“Felix,” Chan said gently. “Look at me.”

He did. Slowly.

“I’m not asking you to decide anything now,” Chan said. “Today’s job is what it was this morning: breathe, eat, let Hane fuss, tolerate Mira’s questions.”

“Hey,” Mira protested from the shelf.

Chan didn’t look away from Felix. “The reason I’m telling you about the Circle,” he continued, “is because I don’t want you to hear only the half of it. You’re not a rumor. You deserve the full story.”

Felix let out a trembling breath. “The full story is… what? That some of your Elders think I’m a problem you shouldn’t have brought home?”

“They think I’m a king who will get us all in trouble if I don’t bite more things,” Chan said dryly. “They’re not entirely wrong. But you are not the problem. The way people think about ownership is.”

Felix studied his face. The tiredness, the resolve, the stubborn kindness that made his chest ache.

“You said… Guest-of-the-Moon,” he said after a moment, testing the phrase. “Did the Circle… agree to that?”

Chan’s lips twitched. “They did,” he said. “Not unanimously. But enough.”

“So now I’m…” Felix tried to picture it from a distance: his own pale, shivering figure stamped with some glowing title. “A story.”

“You were a story the moment the storm didn’t kill you,” Chan said. “This just gives the den better language for it.”

Felix let that settle. It was strange, being talked about in ways that weren’t purely calculation, or hunger, or pity. Strange to be framed as something other than a burden or an asset.

“Guest-of-the-Moon,” he murmured again, as if the syllables might change on his tongue. “Do I have to… do anything?”

“Eat soup,” Chan said promptly. “Learn people’s names. Accept exactly zero offers of ‘friendly advice’ that sound like you owe us for breathing.”

Felix blinked. “Those are… very specific instructions.”

“The den will be curious,” Chan said. “Some will be kind because that’s who they are. Some will be kind because they think they can earn favor with me. Some will be kind because they believe kindness is a down payment on obedience.” His mouth flattened. “You don’t owe any of them anything. Including me.”

Felix’s heart squeezed. “Then why—”

“Because I’m the one with the crown,” Chan interrupted, voice gentle but firm. “The weight is supposed to settle on my shoulders, not on the guests in my bed ward. You have already done more work than most people will ever understand to stay alive. You don’t have to add politics to that pile.”

Felix’s breath hitched. He bit his lip, then forced himself to ask the question clawing at him.

“Do you…” He swallowed. “Do you regret it? Going out in the storm. Bringing me here. Making this… hard.”

Chan sat back a little, considering. Somewhere behind his eyes, something old and tired moved. “I regret that someone put you on that ledge,” he said. “I regret that the only way to keep you safe is to argue with people who should know better. I regret that every choice we make about you will ripple further than it should.” His gaze focused on Felix again. “I do not regret carrying you home.”

Felix’s throat burned.

Chan reached into his coat and pulled something out—a small, wrapped bundle. “Speaking of choices,” he said. “I come bearing bribes.”

Felix blinked at the change in tone. “Bribes?”

“Biscuits,” Chan clarified, unwrapping the cloth to reveal two round, slightly lopsided cookies. “Honey oat. Mira swears they help with terrifying council debriefs.”

Mira, still hovering within earshot, nodded solemnly. “They do. Master Hane eats three after every Circle.”

Felix huffed a laugh he hadn’t expected. “You stole the healer’s biscuits for me?”

“I stole one for you and one for me,” Chan corrected. “I’m not noble enough to starve in solidarity when there’s honey on the line.”

He offered the bundle. Felix hesitated, then took one. It was warm from Chan’s pocket. Sticky crumbs clung to his fingers when he took a bite; the sweetness flooded his tongue so abruptly he almost moaned.

“Mira’s right,” he said thickly. “These… help.”

“Good,” Chan said. He bit into his own, chewed, then added, “If at any point the whispers or the stares or the stories get too much, there’s a phrase you can use with any healer or den guard: ‘Enough for today.’ They’ll know it’s from me. You say that, and they get you out of whatever situation you’re in. No questions.”

Felix watched him, biscuit half-raised. “You… made that a rule?”

“I’m making it now,” Chan said. “Some of my rules are just sentences I repeat until everyone starts obeying them.”

Felix’s lips twitched. “You’re really… insufferable,” he said softly.

“I’ve been told worse,” Chan said, amused. “Wear the title proudly, Guest-of-the-Moon. If anyone complains, tell them the King said so.”

Felix turned the phrase over in his mind. Guest-of-the-Moon. Enough for today. Mine to protect. Yours to choose.

“Okay,” he said quietly.

“Okay?” Chan echoed.

“Okay,” Felix repeated, a little stronger. “I’ll… be your guest. For now. I’ll eat your soup. I’ll learn names. And if anyone tries to tell me I owe them for it, I’ll say ‘Enough for today’ and tell them to take it up with their insufferable King.”

Chan’s grin flashed then, bright and wolfish in a way that made Felix’s stomach swoop—but it wasn’t dangerous. Not the way he’d learned to fear. It was joy, edged with pride.

“Deal,” Chan said. “That’s all I ask.”

He rose, tucking the empty biscuit cloth away. “Hane will be in soon with more salve,” he added. “After that, if you’re not exhausted, I thought…” He hesitated, suddenly less sure. “We could introduce you to one person. Just one. Someone you choose, from the names I give you. Friend, healer, pup, Elder—your call.”

Felix blinked. “I get to… pick who I meet?”

“You don’t have to meet everyone just because they’re curious,” Chan said. “You get to choose your first impression of the den. Names go both ways, remember?”

It was such a small thing, on the surface. But it made something in Felix’s chest unclench.

He nodded slowly. “Okay,” he murmured. “Tell me about them. The people. I’ll… I’ll pick.”

Chan’s shoulders eased, as if Felix had given him some kind of gift. “I will,” he promised. “Rest a bit, first. You’ve paid enough of everyone else’s debts for a while.”

When he left, his scent lingered. Mira plopped back onto the stool, swinging her legs.

“You’re not what I expected,” Felix said after a long moment, surprising himself.

She tilted her head. “Me?”

“Your King,” Felix said, tasting the word. “I thought law meant teeth.”

Mira grinned. “It does,” she said. “But sometimes the teeth are for the people who want to chew up everyone else.”

Felix smiled, small and startled and real. He settled back against the pillows, the biscuit’s sweetness still on his tongue, Chan’s stubborn words echoing in his chest.

Guest-of-the-Moon. Enough for today.

Outside, the storm finally gave up its last flakes, leaving the mountain wrapped in a quieter kind of white. Inside, in a room full of herbs and hushed footsteps, law bent just enough to make space for one more breathing, choosing, complicated life.

It didn’t feel like teeth.

It felt, cautiously, like mercy.

Chapter Text

The first time Felix saw the mountain’s sky from the healer wing, he thought of the sea.

The window was a deep, rounded cut into the stone, wide enough for two people to sit if they didn’t mind their knees touching. Mira had hauled a stack of cushions over as soon as he’d been cleared to move from the bed. The healers had made him promise three times not to overdo it. Chan had made him promise to say “Enough for today” if his body protested.

Now he sat wrapped in a thick wool blanket, back against the cool wall, legs tucked under him. The view looked out across the lower slopes—pine-dark and snow-edged—and beyond that, the distant pale smudge where the world fell away into mist.

If he squinted, he could imagine where the mountains ended and the horizon flattened. Somewhere, beyond all that grey, lay water. Endless and loud and hungry.

His chest tightened.

Mira, cross-legged beside him with a carved wolf toy in her hands, followed his gaze.

“You can’t see the sea from here,” she said matter-of-factly. “Even on the clearest day. But you can smell storms when they’re big enough.”

Felix swallowed. “You’ve seen it?” he asked quietly.

“The sea?” Mira nodded solemnly. “My da takes salt caravans down the pass in summer. Says the air down there tastes like someone spilled tears over everything.” She grimaced. “I don’t like that. So I stay up here and steal biscuits from Master Hane instead.”

Felix huffed a small laugh before he could stop it. The sound felt strange and new in his own ears.

“Did you… did you come from the sea?” she asked, tilting her head. “You smell a little like it, underneath.”

His fingers tightened on the blanket. Underneath Chan’s cedar and the mountain’s smoke, he still carried traces of it, then. Salt. Rope-burn. The memory of wet stone and shouting.

“I used to live… near it,” he said, picking his way around the word clan like it was a sharp shell. “Too close.”

“Oh.” Mira considered that, then nodded. “Sometimes the mountain throws rocks at us. Sometimes the sea throws waves. Grown-ups like to argue about which is worse.”

“And you?” Felix asked.

She grinned, gaps in her teeth bright. “I think they’re both big and silly and need naps.”

Before Felix could answer, footsteps sounded behind them. He didn’t stiffen this time—not all the way. The healers’ wing had taught him the pattern of steps: light and brisk was Mira, measured and soft was Hane, a kind of balanced prowl that made his shoulders loosen without meaning to was—

“Knocking on the rock instead of the door is very on brand for you,” Mira whispered, eyes dancing.

Felix glanced back.

Chan leaned in the doorway, one shoulder propped against the stone, arms loosely crossed. His den-coat was unbuttoned at the throat, a faint ink-smudge on one hand, like he’d come straight from the records room without bothering to clean up. His gaze flicked immediately to Felix—taking in the upright posture, the blanket, the window—then warmed.

“Getting you into the sun already, I see,” Chan said. “Good work, conspirator.”

Mira saluted. “He didn’t even wobble,” she announced. “Mostly.”

“I did,” Felix muttered.

“Wobbling is just standing with extra drama,” Chan said. “No shame in it.”

Felix rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth betrayed him.

It was Mira who noticed the tension in Chan’s shoulders first. Her brows furrowed. “You’re doing the Serious Face,” she accused. “Did the Elders make you sit too long again?”

“Something like that.” Chan straightened, brushing non-existent dust from his coat. His gaze went back to Felix and stayed there. “Can I talk to you? Properly?”

Felix’s stomach dipped. “That sounds ominous.”

“It’s… information,” Chan said. “And a choice. No decisions this morning, I promise.” He glanced at Mira. “Conspirator, could you check if Hane needs help scaring the apprentices?”

“I always need help scaring the apprentices,” Hane’s dry voice floated from somewhere down the hall, making them all jump.

Mira beamed. “See? Duty calls.” She squeezed Felix’s arm in a quick, careful hug. “If he makes you do the face, shout for me. I’ll throw more biscuits.”

“I am not a shield,” Chan protested mildly.

“You’re taller than me. That’s shield enough.” With that, Mira darted off, shawl flapping behind her.

Silence settled briefly. The window-light threw a pale band across the floor; dust motes floated lazily through it. Felix drew his blanket a little closer.

“You’re scaring the apprentices?” he asked faintly.

“Only the ones who try to sneak pain draughts into gossip tea,” Chan said. “It’s a public service.”

Felix swallowed. “You said… information?”

Chan’s teasing eased back, the way a tide pulled from shore before speaking in earnest. He crossed the room and lowered himself to sit opposite Felix, close enough that their knees could have touched if Felix stretched his legs.

“You remember what Mira said,” Chan began, nodding toward the window. “About smelling storms from far away?”

Felix nodded, pulse quickening.

“Our watchers,” Chan said, “can smell banners.”

Felix blinked. “Banners… don’t smell.”

“Not to most people,” Chan agreed. “But when a caravan or a clan comes up the lower slopes, they bring their air with them. Their oiled leathers and their cooking smoke and whatever they use in their braids. If you’ve lived in one scent long enough, it clings.”

His lungs stuttered. He could smell it in his memory already. The sting of salt, pitch from the ships, the sharp, cold tang of the herbs they burned in the claiming rooms.

Chan watched his face carefully. “Two days ago, one of our scouts caught a thread of sea-smell on the east road,” he said. “Just a wisp. We thought it might be traders—sometimes the coast packs bring fish up to sell.” His jaw tightened. “This morning, they saw the banner.”

Felix’s fingers dug into the blanket. “What banner?”

Chan didn’t make him beg. “Blue cloth, white spray-mark, black rope,” he said quietly. “A breaking wave. The sigil of your old clan, I’m guessing.”

For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to the ring of his own pulse.

Breaking Wave. He could see it: the way it snapped in the wind on the docks, the way it loomed over the hall where they’d hung collars on the wall like trophies. The way leaders wore it on their shoulders as they smiled and said words like safety and promise and ours.

“They’re on the lower road?” Felix managed. “Here?”

“Not at our gate,” Chan said. “Not yet. They’re at a way-station three valleys down, asking questions about a missing omega.” He kept his voice calm, unhurried. “Our watchers heard enough to know they’re sniffing in your direction.”

Bile rose in Felix’s throat. He pressed his hand against his middle, swallowing hard.

“Do they know I’m here?” he whispered.

Chan shook his head once. “No. The den is tight. We haven’t said your name beyond the Circle. The mountain has a long memory but a short tongue, when it needs to.”

Felix let his head fall back against the stone, staring at the ceiling until the lines stopped blurring. “They’ll come,” he said, the words more exhale than speech. “If they think I’m alive. They’ll come.”

“Yes,” Chan said simply. “That’s likely.”

Something small and panicked clawed at his chest. “You… you could give me back,” Felix heard himself say, voice thin. “Pretend you never saw me. Let them take me and be done with it. No war. No trouble.”

“No,” Chan said.

“You keep saying that,” Felix snapped, the fear burning up into anger quicker than he could catch it. “You keep saying no like it’s that simple.”

Chan’s gaze didn’t flinch. “It’s not simple,” he said. “It’s just clear.”

Felix laughed, a sharp, broken sound. “You don’t know what they’ll do. What they’ll say. They’ll bring witnesses and papers and… stories, and they’ll make you question everything you think you know. They’re good at that. They’ll make it sound like I’m ungrateful. Like I ran away from the best thing that ever happened to me. Like I’m—”

“Felix.” Chan’s voice cut gently through the spiral. “Look at me.”

He did, breath stuttering.

“I am not returning you,” Chan said. “We’ve had that discussion with the Circle. I’m not reopening it because someone down the mountain thinks their banner gives them a claim to your blood.” His eyes darkened. “You don’t have to convince me you deserve to stay. That part of the fight is over.”

Felix pressed his lips together until they hurt. “Then… what do you need from me?” he asked hoarsely.

Chan hesitated, thumb tracing patterns on his own knee. “I need three things,” he said finally. “First: I need you to know there’s movement. I won’t have you blindsided by a rumor or a shouted name in a hallway. You deserve context.”

“Context,” Felix echoed, faintly dizzy.

“Second,” Chan continued, “I need to know how much of your story you want us to know before we deal with them. Not details you can’t bear—just enough that my people don’t walk into this blind. Names. Patterns. How they argue. What they might try.” He met Felix’s eyes. “That’s up to you. You can tell me, or Hane, or no one. We can still stand in front of them without it. It just helps if we know where they like to stab.”

Felix’s hands were cold. “And the third?”

“The third,” Chan said, “is a bit more selfish.” His mouth quirked, small and humorless. “I don’t intend to meet your past alone. I want my pack at my back. They’re the ones who keep this den running when I do ridiculous things like drag storm omegas home. They’ll be part of whatever comes next. So…” He drew a breath. “I’d like to introduce them to you. Properly. Not as a crowd of staring wolves. As people. With names and roles, so you know who’s who when the world starts shouting.”

Felix blinked at him. “You… want to bring them here?”

“Not all at once,” Chan said quickly. “I’m not dropping a pack of strangers on your bed like a surprise market day. We can do it in twos. Or one at a time. You pick who first. If any of them make you uncomfortable, they leave. No offense taken. I’ll bite them later in private.”

Felix’s breath hitched into a startled almost-laugh. “You threaten to bite an awful lot for someone so against claiming.”

“Biting and bonding are not the same thing,” Chan said primly. “Ask Changbin.”

“Who is… Changbin?”

“A very loud man with a very large axe and a very soft spot for stray pups,” Chan said. “War-captain. He’ll introduce himself by flexing. Don’t be alarmed.”

Despite everything—despite the news about the banner and the rising sickness in his gut—Felix felt his mouth tug upward.

“You want me to meet your war-captain,” he said, “because people I used to know are asking questions down the mountain.”

“I want you to meet my war-captain,” Chan corrected, “because if anyone so much as breathes the wrong way at you when this breaks, he’ll be standing between you and them with that axe. It seems only fair to introduce you in daylight before he’s covered in metaphorical blood.”

Felix stared at him. “You’re… ridiculous.”

“Frequently,” Chan agreed. “We also have a Warden, a Mirror, a Whisper, a Hound, and a Pup, if we’re going by job names.”

Felix blinked. “Those are… titles?”

Chan’s eyes flickered with amusement. “Roles,” he said. “Warden of the Den. Mirror of the Court. Whisper of the Halls. Hound of the Passes. And… well. The youngest. The one everyone underestimates.”

Heat and fear and something like curiosity tangled in Felix’s chest. “You’d bring them all here? For me?”

“I’d bring them here because this involves the den,” Chan said. “You are under our roof. That makes you our business. And because I trust them. With the law. With battle. With my own stupid heart.” He shrugged, eyes still on Felix. “I’d like them to be able to look you in the eye when they say they’ll stand between you and your past.”

Felix looked back out the window. Far below, a hawk wheeled over the treeline, its shadow skimming between branches and stone.

“What if I don’t… tell you anything?” he asked softly. “About them. About me.”

“Then we still prepare,” Chan said. “We read what we can from the way their banner moves and the number of boots in their train. We listen to gossip. We stand at the gate and repeat the same sentence: ‘He is not your property.’ We do not need your pain to know that’s true.” His voice gentled even more. “You are not an intelligence report. You are… you.”

Felix’s throat closed around a painful sound he refused to let out. He pressed his palm flat against the cold stone beside him, grounding himself.

“I can’t…” He swallowed. “I can’t tell you everything. Not now. The words—” He shook his head, unable to finish.

Chan nodded. “Alright.”

“But…” Felix drew a shaky breath. “I can tell you enough that you don’t walk blind.”

Chan’s shoulders eased fractionally. “That’s more than enough,” he said. “We can do it in pieces. Bits of string instead of the whole net.”

Felix snorted weakly. “You and your metaphors.”

“Gotta keep up my reputation as insufferable,” Chan said. “Shall we start with one thing today? One piece of context. Then we stop. No digging.”

Felix hesitated. The banner flashed in his mind again—blue, white, black—and the hand that had held the rope that held the collar—

“Names,” he whispered. “They… they like names. Full ones. All your titles, spoken out loud like a list. They use them when they praise you. When they hurt you. They say them like spells. ‘Felix of the Breaking Wave, third-son, tide-marked, tide-kept, ours.’” His voice shook on the last word. “If they call me that, I… might freeze.”

Chan was very, very still.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “That’s… important.” He let a beat pass. “No one here will call you that.”

“They might,” Felix rasped. “If they hear them.”

“Then we’ll make sure the first name they hear is ‘Guest-of-the-Moon,’” Chan said. “And the second is ‘no.’”

Felix’s shoulders slumped. A part of him unclenched that he hadn’t realized was braced.

“Enough for today?” Chan asked, voice gentle.

He thought about the banner, about the way his heart still raced. About the fact that he was upright, breathing, not back in that salt-reeking hall.

“Enough about them,” Felix murmured. “Not… not enough about you.”

Chan blinked. “About me?”

“And your pack,” Felix said, surprising himself with his own certainty. “You said… you’d introduce them. I… I think I want that. Before everything… knocks.”

For a heartbeat, something bright and raw moved behind Chan’s eyes. Gratitude, Felix realized belatedly. Relief.

“Alright,” Chan said, a little hoarsely. “We’ll start with the Warden. He’s the one who will complain most if I don’t give him time to glare at you gently before anyone else.”

“Gently?” Felix repeated dubiously.

“You’ll see,” Chan said, pushing himself to his feet. “I’ll send him in. If at any point you decide you want everyone to go fall off a cliff, say so. I’ll pick a smaller metaphorical cliff near the kitchens.”

Felix’s answering smile was shaky but real. “Okay.”

Chan hesitated at the door. “Felix?”

“Yes?”

“You are not trouble,” Chan said, each word firm. “They are not coming because you did something wrong. They are coming because some people think ownership is a reasonable goal. That’s on them. Not on you.”

The words lodged somewhere under his ribs. He held them there as Chan slipped out.

⸻

The Warden of the Den arrived five minutes later, announced only by the precise sound of boots on stone.

Felix sat up a little straighter, palms damp.

The man who stepped through the doorway was lean where Chan was solid, sharp where Chan was striped in softness. He wore the same den-coat, but his was buckled all the way up, the wolf-teeth pattern on his belt polished to a quiet shine. Dark hair fell over one eye; the other was cool and assessing, like a cat deciding whether to sit on your lap or claw your face.

He stopped just inside, took in Felix in a sweep, and bowed—not deep, but unmistakably respectful.

“Guest-of-the-Moon,” he said. His voice was smooth, with an edge under it like a hidden blade. “I am Minho. Warden of the Den.”

Felix blinked. “Warden,” he echoed.

“I make sure idiots don’t fall off walls,” Minho said. “Or walk in where they’re not wanted.” One corner of his mouth twitched. “Sometimes the idiots are enemies. Sometimes they’re our own.”

“Sometimes they’re you,” Chan’s voice called from somewhere down the hall.

Minho didn’t look away from Felix. “Frequently they’re me,” he amended. “His Majesty has excellent hearing.”

Felix huffed, surprising himself. Some of the tightness in his chest eased.

“What do Wardens do when… old enemies come up the road?” he heard himself ask.

Minho’s gaze sharpened. “We count how many boots they bring,” he said. “We mark who walks at the front and who hides in the back. We measure how far their shadows stretch against our walls. And we set the lines where they will not cross.”

His hand, resting at his side, flexed once, revealing faint scars across the knuckles.

“And if someone in here is afraid of them?” Felix asked quietly.

Minho considered him. “Then I make sure they never have to stand in front of those faces alone,” he said. “And if any of those faces tries to push past me, I break their nose.”

It was said as calmly as if he were reciting a recipe.

Felix’s throat wobbled. “You don’t… even know me,” he whispered.

Minho’s mouth softened by a degree. “I know enough,” he said. “Chan brought you in from a storm and spoke your name in Circle. That’s not nothing.” His gaze flicked to Felix’s bandaged wrist. “And I know that whoever did that will learn what it means to have walked into the wrong mountain.”

“Isn’t that… dangerous?” Felix asked. “For you. For the den.”

Minho lifted one shoulder. “We make a habit of being more dangerous than the people who want to hurt us,” he said. “That’s the job.”

Felix stared at him, a strange warmth threading through the fear. Not comfort, exactly. But solidity.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

Minho inclined his head as if this were a sensible thing to say to someone who’d just promised violence on your behalf. “If you ever do not want to be looked at,” he added, “say so. I will empty the room.”

Felix’s lips parted. “You can’t do that.”

“Watch me,” Minho said mildly. “Warden.”

There wasn’t much to say after that. Minho didn’t press for details. He didn’t ask about the sea or the banner. He just stood there, weight even on both feet, like a wall with eyes.

After a few minutes, the tightest line of Felix’s shoulders eased.

“Is this… enough for today?” Minho asked finally.

Felix thought about it, then shook his head. “Enough glaring,” he said. “Not enough… names.”

Minho’s eye crinkled. “We’ll fix that,” he said. “Changbin’s next. Brace yourself. He’s very loud. He’ll probably bring snacks.”

He bowed again, then left as quietly as he’d come.

⸻

Changbin did, in fact, bring snacks.

He barreled into the room like a small, cheerful avalanche, arms full of something that smelled suspiciously like fried dough and cinnamon. Broader than Chan, shorter by half a head, he wore his hair pulled back and his sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms that looked like they could punch through doors.

“Guest-of-the-Moon!” he boomed, then winced at his own volume as Felix flinched. “Sorry. Inside voice. I’m bad at those.”

“It’s okay,” Felix said automatically, heart thudding.

“Not if it made you jump.” Changbin set the tray down, then stepped back with exaggerated care. “I’m Changbin. War-captain. Also head of shouting. Chan says if I yell at enemies enough they might trip and fall down the mountain from sheer irritation.”

Felix found himself smiling despite everything. “Does it work?”

“Sometimes,” Changbin said. “Sometimes I also hit them. It improves the odds.” He jerked his chin toward the tray. “I brought mountain twists. I find it’s harder to be afraid when you have something sticky to chew.”

Felix hesitated, then reached. The twist was warm and dusted with sugar that immediately got all over his fingers.

“I hear your old lot are being nosy down the road,” Changbin said, tone light but eyes shrewd. “Rude of them. We have a system. You lose something on the mountain, you leave it there. Otherwise everything gets confusing.”

Felix blinked. “A system.”

“Mm.” Changbin folded his arms. “You fall, we haul. You stay, we feed. You leave, we send you with dried meat and stern advice. Nobody gets to come stomping back to claim ownership like they dropped their favorite knife.”

Felix chewed slowly. “And if they try anyway?”

Changbin’s grin flashed, bright and feral. “Then we remind them whose mountain this is,” he said. “Politely, at first. Less politely if they keep talking.”

“You’re not… worried?” Felix asked. “About what they’ll bring? What they’ll say?”

“Of course I’m worried,” Changbin said. “That’s how I know I’m paying attention.” He shrugged. “But I’ve seen Chan stand in front of things worse than a banner. He doesn’t bend easy. And he doesn’t stand alone.”

The twist blurred in Felix’s hands. “He keeps saying that,” he whispered. “That I’m not alone.”

“That’s because you’re not,” Changbin said bluntly. “Right now, you’ve got me and my axes, Minho and his death-glare, Hane and his herbs, Mira and her biscuits, and a King who thinks consent is a law, not a courtesy.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “More coming, if you’ll have us.”

Felix swallowed hard. “I… I don’t know what to do with that.”

“Eat,” Changbin said. “Breathe. When the shouting starts, let us do the part where we stand in front of you and look scary.” His eyes softened. “You’ve done enough heavy lifting on this story.”

Felix’s chest squeezed. “You sound like Chan.”

Changbin groaned. “Don’t tell him that,” he begged. “His head will get bigger. He’ll start writing pamphlets.”

“Pamphlets?” Felix echoed, startled into laughing.

“‘On the Importance of Consent in a Well-Run Den,’” Changbin intoned in an overly serious voice. “‘By Bang Chan, who definitely did not pick this topic just because he dragged a storm omega home.’”

“I heard that,” Chan called from the hall.

Changbin grinned unrepentantly. “Good. Now you’ll have to write it.”

⸻

By the time Hyunjin and Jisung—“Mirror” and “Whisper”—came in, Felix’s head was buzzing, but not from fever.

Hyunjin was tall and fluid, the sort of person who looked like he’d glide instead of walk if someone didn’t stop him. His hair fell in a glossy curtain; his eyes were sharp enough to cut silk.

“I watch faces,” he said simply, after a surprisingly graceful bow. “Court, guests, enemies. I’ll be the one looking for cracks when your old clan speaks, so you don’t have to.”

Jisung, shorter, with quick fingers and a quicker mouth, flopped onto the edge of a stool and nearly fell off it.

“I listen in the walls,” he said cheerfully, once he’d righted himself. “And in the kitchen. And in the stables. Basically anywhere people think they can whisper without being heard. If your past tries to lie about you, I’ll make sure we have the truth before they get to finish.”

Felix’s head spun. “You all… have so many jobs,” he said faintly.

“We share,” Jisung said. “Hyunjin does all the glaring pretty, I do the panicking in the back, Changbin does the punching, Minho does the scowling, Chan does the overthinking, Seungmin keeps us from dying of our own stupidity, and Jeongin reminds us that joy exists.”

“Jeongin?” Felix echoed.

“The Pup,” Hyunjin said. “Youngest scout. Hound of the Passes. He has a very good nose and an even better sense of when someone needs a joke or a blanket.”

Felix wasn’t sure if he was ready for that.

“Do you… ever get tired?” he whispered, looking between them. “Of standing between other people and… everything?”

Hyunjin’s gaze softened. “All the time,” he said. “That’s why there are many of us. So we can take turns.”

Jisung nodded. “You’re allowed to get tired too,” he said. “You don’t have to hold everything up by yourself anymore.”

The words settled over Felix like another blanket. He found himself clutching at their edges, metaphorical and real, as the day wore on.

Seungmin came later with a basket of neatly folded linens and the sort of dry wit that made Felix snort into his pillow. He introduced himself as “Keeper of Schedules and People Who Forget Them,” and promised to ensure no one barged into Felix’s room without checking first.

Jeongin—bright-eyed, cheeks pink from the cold outside—turned up last, a little out of breath, a puff of snow still clinging to his hair.

“Sorry—sorry,” he said, words tumbling. “I was on the north wall. There’s an ice overhang that looks like a wolf’s nose—oh.” He stopped, taking Felix in properly, and his whole face softened. “Hi. I’m Jeongin. Hound. I’ll be the one running up and down the mountain making sure no one sneaks up on us.”

Felix, wrung out and weary, still found the energy to smile. “That sounds… like a lot of running.”

Jeongin shrugged. “I like running,” he said. “And I like bringing news faster than rumors. You’ll hear things. People talk. If you ever want to know if something is true, ask me. I’ll find out. So you don’t have to guess.”

By the time the sun had shifted across the window, Felix’s eyes felt gritty. His hand ached from clutching the blanket. But for the first time since the storm—and maybe longer—his fear didn’t feel like a solitary, smothering thing.

It felt… shared. Spread across multiple shoulders, each built for a different kind of weight.

Chan slipped back in as Jeongin left, closing the door softly behind him.

“How are we doing?” he asked.

Felix let out a long breath. “Full,” he said honestly. “Of names. And… biscuits.”

Chan’s mouth quirked. “Too much?”

“Enough,” Felix said. “But not… bad enough.” He hesitated, then added, “They’re… different.”

“From what you expected?” Chan asked.

“From what I’ve known,” Felix said. His voice was small. “Where I grew up, the ones with roles, with titles… they always looked at you like they were calculating how much you were worth. How far they could push before you broke. Your people look at me like they’re… checking where it hurts.”

Chan lowered himself onto the cushioned bench beside Felix, leaving a careful handspan of space between them. “That’s their job,” he said. “To notice where it hurts and decide how to stand between you and more of it.”

“It’s a lot,” Felix whispered.

“I know,” Chan said. “We can stop here. Let the mountain breathe around you for a while.”

Felix stared at his hands. They shook faintly, but less than they had when he’d first sat up at this window.

“Chan,” he said suddenly. “My… old clan. If they come. If they stand at your gate and call my name—with all the titles—what will you do? What will you say?”

Chan was quiet for a long moment.

Then, in a voice that was soft and irrevocable, he said, “I will tell them this: ‘Felix is a guest under my roof, protected by den law. You will not speak of him as property. You will not drag him out by force. If he wishes to see you, he may. If he wishes not to, you leave. Those are the terms. If you cannot accept them, you can turn around and walk back to your sea.’”

Felix’s breath hitched. “And if they… threaten? If they say they’ll burn villages, cut off trade, send war?”

“Then they make war,” Chan said gently. “On a den that is ready for it. On a war-captain who’s been waiting his whole life to punch someone for the right reasons. On a pack that does not abandon its guests. And on a King who would rather rebuild from ashes than live in a world where people are traded like rope.”

Felix’s eyes burned. “That’s too much,” he whispered. “For me. For what I am.”

“You are a person,” Chan said. “That’s enough.”

A sound that might have been a sob or a laugh clawed its way out of Felix’s throat. He turned his face toward the window, blinking hard, trying to focus on the sky.

Below, the mountain held its snow. Somewhere beyond the haze, the sea heaved and clawed. The banners would come. The past would knock, loud and demanding.

But between the horizon and this room stood walls and wolves and one stubborn, insufferable King who believed names could be rebuilt and debts to the moon paid in kindness.

Felix drew in a slow breath. It hurt, a little. It also felt like breathing for the first time in years.

“Okay,” he whispered. “When they come… I don’t want to see them. Not at first. Not until I’m ready.”

“Then you won’t,” Chan said immediately.

“And if I’m never ready?” Felix asked.

Chan’s answer was instant. “Then you’re never ready,” he said. “And we still stand.”

Felix closed his eyes. A tear slipped down his cheek. He didn’t wipe it away.

Outside, far beyond what he could see, the Breaking Wave banner billowed in some valley wind, its bearers certain of their rights.

Inside, in a room that smelled of thyme and cedar and sugar, Felix leaned his head back against the stone and let himself believe—for today, for this heartbeat—that maybe he was more than what they had made him.

Echoes from the sea could knock as loud as they liked.

For now, the mountain answered first.

Chapter Text

The mountain always sounded different at night.

By day, the healer wing hummed—footsteps, clinking bowls, Mira’s running commentary. At night, sounds stretched out. Every whisper carried further. Every bell echoed longer.

Felix lay awake, counting them.

One.

Two.

Three.

The bells were lower than the ones that called the Circle, less formal but more urgent. Each toll vibrated through the stone like the mountain’s own heartbeat.

Mira snored softly in the next cot over, curled around her wolf toy. Hane, asleep in a chair with his head tipped back, breathed in slow, steady pulls. The lanterns had been dimmed; shadows pooled in the corners like water.

Felix turned onto his side, wincing as his ribs protested. The window cut a dark mouth in the wall. Beyond it, only the faintest smudge of stars peeked through cloud.

“Trial bells,” someone whispered in the hallway.

Felix froze. His hearing seemed to sharpen around the words.

“Who challenged?” another voice hissed back, lower. “Not one of the outer packs—no runners came up the north road.”

“No. Den business,” the first replied. “Erin’s boy, Dahn. Sarin’s blood.”

Felix’s stomach dropped.

Dahn. He didn’t know the name, but he knew the type. There was always someone—young enough to be hungry, old enough to be dangerous, carrying an Elder’s shadow like a cloak. Someone eager to prove they could bite harder than whatever mercy the king was preaching.

“What for?” a third voice asked, footsteps slowing.

“The guest,” came the answer. “The King’s law. They’re calling it soft. Says if His Majesty wants to keep changing rules for storms, he can prove he’s still got teeth for more than words.”

The footsteps faded with them.

Felix stared at the ceiling, heart thundering so loud he was sure he’d wake the entire ward.

They’re challenging him because of you.

The thought came cold and vicious. It slunk into the cracks of his chest and coiled there.

He pushed the blanket off and immediately shivered. The air was colder near the floor, kissed with drafts from the hallway. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the pull in his ribs.

He didn’t know where he thought he was going. Down to the hall where they’d gathered? Out to the terrace where the trial would be held? Into the past, to stand in front of a different set of teeth?

His feet hit stone. The chill shot up his calves, but he forced himself upright.

He made it as far as the curtain.

A hand caught the edge before he could pull it aside.

“Going somewhere, Guest-of-the-Moon?” Minho’s voice murmured quietly.

Felix startled, the curtain slipping from his fingers. The Warden stood half in shadow, den-coat dark against the lighter stone. His hair was loose now, falling over both eyes.

“I—” Felix’s throat scraped. “I heard… the bells.”

“So did every wolf and mouse in this rock,” Minho said dryly. “It’s loud on purpose.”

Felix swallowed. “They’re… challenging him. Because of me.”

“They’re challenging his law,” Minho corrected. “Because they don’t like the way he’s using it. You are the excuse, not the reason.”

“I don’t see the difference,” Felix whispered.

Minho studied him for a long moment. “You’re not going,” he said finally.

Felix’s hackles lifted. “You can’t tell me—”

“I can,” Minho said mildly. “It’s my job. And you’ve got a healer, three apprentices, and one very bitey child in this wing who will all wake up screaming if they find your bed empty.”

Felix glanced back, throat tight. Mira had rolled over, arm flung out, fingers curled around empty air where his blanket had been. As if even sleeping, she’d noticed the shift.

“I can’t just lie here while he—” Felix began, voice breaking.

“Yes,” Minho said quietly. “You can. That’s the point.”

Felix looked back at him, confusion and anger and fear tangling. “What if he gets hurt? What if he loses? You said some kings break laws until they snap—what if the den decides they’d rather have a king who bites on command than one who—who—”

“Refuses to bite you?” Minho’s gaze was steady. “Felix. Look at me.”

He did, reluctant and shaking.

“This is not your trial,” Minho said. “It’s his.”

Felix’s hands curled involuntarily. “But I’m the reason—”

“You are the proof,” Minho cut in. “Not the reason. We have been arguing about what it means to be strong for longer than you’ve been alive. This is just the first time the question has a face the entire den can see.”

Was that supposed to make him feel better? It didn’t.

“Besides,” Minho added, tone so dry it could have sparked, “if Chan thought showing his fangs over you made you safer, he would have done it already.”

Felix’s breath stuttered. “He… won’t bite.”

“He will fight,” Minho corrected. “He’s not foolish. But he fights like the laws he wants to write—with restraint. With boundaries. That’s what they’re testing tonight, more than his teeth: whether he can stand in the circle, win, and not become the kind of king they claim to want.”

“And if he fails?” Felix whispered.

“Then I’ll yank his ear until he remembers who he is,” Minho said. “But he won’t.”

Another bell rolled through the stone, closer this time. Felix jumped.

Minho’s hand came down, warm and firm, resting on his uninjured shoulder. “You want to listen?” he asked. “You can. The trial terrace is two floors up and one wing over. The sound carries. But you are not going to see it. Not tonight.”

Felix’s first impulse was to argue. The second… wasn’t.

He’d seen enough teeth aimed at people trying to protect him. He didn’t think he could watch Chan stand in that ring.

“I…” He swallowed. “I don’t… know if I can listen either.”

“Then you’ll lie back down,” Minho said. “And when the noises get bad, you can focus on my very loud, very boring commentary instead.”

Felix blinked. “Commentary.”

“I’ll tell you what’s happening,” Minho said. “Sanitized. You’ll get the bones, not the blood.”

Felix stared at him. “Why?”

“Because the mountain is already talking,” Minho said simply. “I’d rather you hear my voice than rumors. And because if I leave you alone with your imagination, you’ll set yourself on fire with it.”

He said it like a weather forecast. Not unkind. Just true.

Felix’s throat worked. “Alright,” he whispered.

Minho nodded once, satisfied. “Good. Back to bed, Guest-of-the-Moon. That’s an order.”

Felix let himself be steered back to the mattress. The blanket felt colder than before, but Minho tucked it around him with brisk efficiency.

“Close your eyes,” Minho said quietly. “Listen to my words. Not every shout.”

Felix did, more because his body was exhausted than because his mind was convinced. Minho dragged the stool closer, the legs scraping softly. Beyond the door, footsteps quickened; voices murmured; someone laughed too loudly and was immediately hushed.

The bells tolled again. The sound reverberated in Felix’s bones.

“Trial circle is lit,” Minho said under his breath, as if narrating a story by the fire. “Torches along the outer ring. Moon’s trying to punch through the clouds. She likes drama.”

Felix almost smiled. Almost.

“Who… is Dahn?” he whispered.

“Sarin’s grandson,” Minho said. “Good fighter. Better ego. Never liked that Chan wins arguments without drawing blood.”

The scrape of distant chairs told of people gathering. Felix imagined the terrace—large, flat, open to the night. He’d seen it once from afar through the window: a ring of stone, blackened in places from old fires, scars cut into it from claws and weapons.

“Chan arrives,” Minho murmured. “No cloak. Tied his hair back. He does that when he wants everyone to see his eyes.”

Felix’s fingers tightened on the blanket. “Is he… armed?”

“With a short knife and bad jokes,” Minho said. “Same as always.”

Voices rose, faint but distinct. A formal cadence threaded through them—someone announcing the terms.

“By old den law,” Minho translated softly, “when a decree is challenged, the King may be called to prove his right to set it. Trial by contest under moon-witness. Till yield, or till first blood, or till the challenger cannot stand.”

“That’s insane,” Felix breathed. “He’s the King.”

“That’s why the law exists,” Minho replied. “So no crown forgets the weight of the body under it. So the people who bleed for our choices can see we’re not just ink and signatures.”

Felix swallowed.

“What… did they choose?” he asked, barely audible.

“Yield,” Minho said. “Chan insisted. He doesn’t want any ‘oops we cut too deep’ stories tonight.”

Felix pictured him saying that—lightly, with that half-smile that made everything sound less dire than it was.

His chest ached.

“He steps into the circle,” Minho continued. “No posturing. No pacing. Just… planting his feet. Dahn’s doing the pacing for both of them. He’s trying to rile the crowd. Talking about storms and strays and kings who bring trouble home on purpose.”

Felix flinched. “And Chan?”

“Standing,” Minho said. “Letting him talk. Waiting for the part that matters.”

The crowd noise swelled, then broke. A sharp, ringing sound cut through it—metal on stone.

“Signal,” Minho murmured. “Trial begins.”

Felix’s pulse slammed. He squeezed his eyes shut harder, as if that would somehow help.

“He goes for Chan’s shoulder first,” Minho narrated. “Classic. Test the guard. Chan lets him. Takes the hit.”

“Lets him?” Felix hissed.

“Relax,” Minho murmured. “He needed to know how hard the boy hits. Better to learn that from a glancing blow than a full swing.”

Felix was suddenly, painfully aware that the man speaking beside his bed had been in trials like this before.

“Chan steps back,” Minho continued. “Still not striking. Hands up, open. He’s moving like he does with pups who are having a tantrum with knives.”

Felix almost choked. “That’s not comforting.”

“It is if you’ve seen him handle them,” Minho said. “Dahn lunges. Again. Again.” A faint, appreciative hum. “Good footwork. He’s fast. But he’s burning too hot. Chan’s letting him. Letting him tire himself on air and stone and ego.”

Felix heard it then—the faint, distant roar of a crowd reacting as a whole organism. Gasps, exclamations, a chorus of “oh”s that made his stomach dip.

“He clipped Chan’s jaw,” Minho said. “That’ll bruise. He’ll milk it later for sympathy points.”

Felix’s fingers dug into the mattress. “Is he—”

“He’s fine,” Minho said. “Now he’s answering.”

The tone of his voice shifted. Less clinical. More… engaged.

“Low sweep,” Minho said. “Takes Dahn’s legs from under him, but doesn’t press. Lets him scramble back up. Makes the point: ‘I can put you on the ground. I’m choosing not to keep you there.’”

“Why?” Felix demanded, half-sick. “Why doesn’t he just—just end it?”

“Because ending it isn’t the point,” Minho said. “Everyone watching already knows he can win if he matches violence with violence. They’re here to see if he can win without becoming the thing he refuses to be.”

The words from earlier rang in Felix’s head: They’re testing whether he can stand in the circle, win, and not become the kind of king they claim to want.

The crowd noise swelled again, then broke into scattered cheers. A clang of metal.

“Knife’s gone,” Minho said. “Kicked out of Dahn’s hand. It skittered over the edge of the circle. That’ll sting his pride.”

Felix’s nails bit crescents into his palms.

“What is he saying?” he whispered.

“Dahn?” Minho snorted softly. “That Chan is soft. That he’s risking the den for a pretty face the storm spat out.” A pause. “He’s using your old titles, too. The ones you told Chan.”

Felix’s blood went cold. His throat closed. “How—”

“Rumors,” Minho said. “And very good ears. Doesn’t matter. Chan’s speaking over him now.”

Felix strained to hear, but only caught the shape of the sound, not the words.

“He’s not shouting,” Minho murmured, half to himself. “He never shouts in trials. He’s telling the den a story instead. About Witan’s child. About a lord who came to drag him back, and a den that said no.” A small, wry huff. “He’s stealing my favorite speech. Rude.”

Felix felt something in his chest unclench, barely.

“And Dahn?” he asked.

“Still swinging,” Minho said. “He got a good one in. Chan’s breathing heavier now. But he’s… hm.”

Felix waited, every muscle tense.

“He’s funneling it,” Minho said quietly. “All that force. Turning it. Dahn grabs, he turns. Dahn shoves, he yields and pulls. He’s using the boy’s own weight against him.”

Felix had seen fights like that once, in the training yards. He’d watched alphas send each other flying without ever throwing a punch that landed where it looked like it would. It had seemed like magic then. It felt like it now.

The crowd’s sound shifted yet again. Less eager. More… intent.

“Chan’s got him,” Minho said.

Felix’s breath hitched. “Got him how?”

“Arm lock,” Minho replied. “Shoulder to his back, knee to his legs. Dahn’s face is in the stone. Chan’s teeth—”

Felix flinched hard. “Don’t.”

“—are not on his throat,” Minho finished, tone firm. “They’re at his ear.”

Felix’s heart pounded loud enough to drown out everything else.

“He’s talking,” Minho said. “Loud enough for the front row to hear. He’s not saying, ‘Yield or I’ll bite.’ He’s saying, ‘Yield, because I won’t.’ He’s saying, ‘If you want a king who tears out throats to prove he can, find another mountain.’”

Felix’s eyes stung.

“Dahn is… not taking that well,” Minho added dryly. “But he can feel the line. Chan is right there. Any closer and this becomes something he’d regret. So he holds.”

A beat. Two.

“Dahn yields,” Minho said quietly.

The roar that followed shook dust from the rafters. Even up here, the sound rolled through the stone like a wave hitting rock.

Felix’s whole body sagged.

“He stepped back,” Minho narrated, softer now. “He let go. Didn’t push him into the ground. Offered him a hand up. Dahn refused it, but that’s his problem. Chan’s bleeding from the lip and the side. He’s going to pretend it doesn’t hurt until Hane yells at him.”

Felix let out a shaky laugh that turned into something suspiciously like a sob.

“It’s done,” Minho said. “Law stands. Guest-of-the-Moon stands. The Circle can gripe in their tea, but they can’t say he doesn’t carry the crown with his body as well as his words.”

Felix turned his face into the pillow, breathing in the faint smell of soap and herbs. His chest hurt in new ways now, none of them entirely physical.

“Why…” His voice came out thick. “Why did you… stay here? With me? Instead of going down to… to watch?”

Minho’s answer was immediate. “Because you are my job,” he said simply. “Wardens stand where the walls are thin.”

Felix laughed, wet and disbelieving. “I’m a wall now?”

“You’re a place trouble might try to break through,” Minho said. “I prefer to be here first.”

Footsteps approached down the hall. The curtain rustled; Hane’s sleep-rough voice muttered something about “idiot kings and their dramatic bruises.”

“Go,” Felix whispered. “You should… check on him.”

“I intend to,” Minho said. “Sleep, Guest-of-the-Moon. The mountain is loud enough without you adding to it.”

Felix wanted to argue that he wasn’t tired. His body disagreed. The adrenaline crash hit like a wave, leaving his limbs heavy and his eyes burning.

“Minho,” he murmured, as the Warden’s steps moved away.

“Yes?”

“If he…” Felix swallowed. “If he does that again for someone else, will you… tell them? What he said tonight?”

“If they need to hear it,” Minho said. “Yes.”

“Good,” Felix whispered.

Sleep dragged him under before he could say anything else.

⸻

Chan came to him hours later, when the bells were only echoes and the torches on the terrace had been doused.

Felix woke to the feeling of someone nearby, a familiar scent settling into the room like a cloak: cedar, sweat, a faint iron tang of dried blood, and underneath it all the same winter tea note that had anchored him since the storm.

“Hey,” Chan said softly. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Felix blinked blearily. The lantern nearest his bed had been turned up just enough to see by. Chan stood next to it, one hand braced against the wall, the other dabbing at the corner of his mouth with a cloth.

A dark bruise was already forming along his jaw. The split lip had been cleaned, but the skin around it was swollen. His den-coat hung open, revealing bandages peeking white against his ribs.

“You look awful,” Felix blurted.

Chan’s mouth kicked up. “Thank you,” he said. “I was going for ‘dramatically wounded but still charming.’”

Felix pushed himself up with a wince. “You fought.”

“I did,” Chan said.

“For me,” Felix said, voice low.

“For the law,” Chan countered gently. “You were the story they used. Not the reason I swung.”

Felix’s jaw clenched. “That doesn’t make me feel better.”

Chan’s eyes softened. He stepped closer, moving slowly enough that Felix could track every shift. “Minho told you?”

“He told me enough,” Felix said. “Torches. Circle. Dahn. Old laws and new. And that you could have bitten him and you didn’t.”

Chan’s gaze flickered with something complicated. “I could have,” he said. “Yes.”

“Why?” Felix asked. “You said… they wanted to see if you could stand there and not become what they wanted. Why not just… end it quickly?”

Chan was quiet for a moment, studying his hands.

“When I was younger,” he said slowly, “my mentors taught me how to win fights. Efficiently. Decisively. Bite fast. Break hard. Make sure no one questions the outcome.” He looked up. “It works. People see blood and they stop arguing, because they think the argument is over.”

Felix’s stomach turned.

“But…” Chan continued. “I also watched what happened after. How people flinched around those kings. How they stopped bringing bad news because they were afraid it would earn them teeth. How decisions got worse because no one would say no.”

He flexed his bruised jaw once, as if remembering old blows. “When I took the crown, I promised myself this: if I was going to carry it into the circle, I’d win in a way that didn’t teach my den to fear me. I’d win with… restraint.”

Felix’s fingers twisted in the blanket. “They already fear you,” he said softly. “In their own way. Dahn. Sarin. The ones who think you’re… soft.”

“They fear what I might change,” Chan said. “Not what I might do to them if they disagree. That’s… a different kind of fear.” He smiled ruefully. “Tonight was about showing them I can stand my ground without making their nightmares come true.”

“And if you’d lost?” Felix whispered.

Chan’s mouth tipped sideways. “Then I’d be icing more than my ribs,” he said. “And Minho would be insufferable about tactical critiques.”

Felix stared at him. “I’m serious.”

“So am I,” Chan said gently. “Felix. I knew the risk. I chose it. You were not up there with me, no matter what your heart tells you.” He gestured to his bruises. “These are mine. Not yours.”

Felix’s throat burned. “But they—”

“—would have challenged something sooner or later,” Chan cut in. “If not this, then some other decree. That’s how power works. People test it. I’d rather be tested on mercy than on how convincingly I can hurt someone.”

The words lodged under Felix’s ribs, cracking something open.

“I heard… Minho said you said you wouldn’t bite,” Felix murmured. “Not even when you had him down.”

Chan’s gaze flicked away, briefly. “If I’d bitten,” he said slowly, “the story they’d tell tomorrow would be ‘Look, the King talks pretty, but in the end he’s just like the rest of them.’ They’d use it to justify every collar they’ve ever snapped shut. Every law they’ve ever written with someone else’s blood. I’m not giving them that.”

Felix reached without thinking, fingers brushing his own bandaged wrist. “Even if it means more bruises for you,” he said.

Chan’s smile this time was small and real. “Bruises heal,” he said. “Stories last.”

The room was very quiet. The lantern hissed softly.

“I thought you might be… angry,” Felix admitted after a beat. “That you had to do that. For me.”

Chan’s brows drew together. “Angry?”

“At me,” Felix said. The words came out brittle. “For making things so… complicated. You could have had an easy reign if you’d just handed me back, or marked me, or—”

“No,” Chan said.

Felix almost laughed. “You keep saying that.”

“Because it’s true,” Chan insisted. “If I’d handed you back, I’d be spending every night waiting to hear news of what they’d done with you. I’d be wondering if you were still breathing. If I’d marked you, I’d be wondering if you were flinching every time you felt my teeth.” His jaw tightened. “Neither of those options is an ‘easy reign.’ They’re just… quieter guilt.”

Felix swallowed.

“This?” Chan gestured vaguely toward the terrace, where the trial circle lay cooling. “This I can live with. Bruises, stubborn Elders, Minho’s nagging. A den that grumbles but still stands for something. You in this bed, complaining about my aesthetic choices. That’s… a reign I can understand.”

Felix’s vision blurred. Suddenly, fiercely, he was tired of trying not to cry in front of people who had already seen him at his lowest.

“I didn’t want you to bleed for me,” he whispered.

Chan stepped closer until he was within easy reach of the bed. “I didn’t bleed for you,” he said. “I bled for the law I want you to live under.”

Felix’s breath hitched.

“It’s not the same thing,” Chan added gently. “Though I understand why it feels like it.”

They sat in silence for a moment, the kind that wasn’t empty, just… full of too many things to say.

“What did they do?” Felix asked suddenly. “After you won.”

Chan blinked. “The den?”

“The ones who challenged,” Felix said. “Sarin. Dahn.”

“Sarin glared so hard at me I thought his braids might catch fire,” Chan said. “Dahn refused my hand, then stalked off to lick his pride. The rest did what they always do after a trial: argued about technique, speculated about what bruises look the worst, placed bets on how long it would take Hane to yell at me.”

Felix almost smiled. “And Hane?”

“Told me if I was going to keep making speeches with my jaw, I should stop lending it to other people’s fists,” Chan said. “Then he patched me up while Mira tried to sneak extra honey into my tea.”

Felix’s heart squeezed at the image.

“You should be sleeping,” Chan added. “Hane will put you on trial if he sees you upright at this hour.”

“I was asleep,” Felix protested weakly. “Until the bells.”

“And… now?” Chan asked. “Do you want me to go?”

The question was so unexpected that for a moment, Felix just stared at him.

He could say yes. He could pull the blanket over his head and pretend none of this had happened. He could sink back into the numb place he’d lived in for so long—where other people’s choices crashed over him like waves and all he had to do was survive them.

But…

“No,” he heard himself say. Quiet, but firm. “I want you to stay. If you can.”

Chan’s smile went soft at the edges. A little slanted. A little tired. “I can,” he said.

He pulled the stool closer and sat, careful not to jostle his ribs. For a while, they didn’t talk. The healer wing creaked and sighed around them. Somewhere, a nurse hummed under her breath, tidying.

Felix watched Chan’s hands resting on his knees, scratched and bruised. He thought of those same hands in the circle—catching, redirecting, stopping just short of damage he’d have regretted. He thought of teeth bared not to claim or to maim, but to draw a line.

“Chan,” he said suddenly.

“Mm?”

“I’m glad you didn’t bite him,” Felix whispered.

Chan’s gaze slid to him, unreadable for a heartbeat. Then it softened.

“Me too,” he said.

Felix let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“Does it…” He hesitated. “Does it ever get easier?”

“What?” Chan asked. “Walking into a ring under the moon while your entire den watches to see what kind of wolf you’ll be?”

Felix glared weakly. “Being… what you are. King. Law. The one people test. The one who chooses.”

Chan looked down at his hands again, flexing them once.

“No,” he said honestly. “It doesn’t get easier. But it gets… clearer. The more I say no to being the kind of king they expect, the more I know who I am when I step into that circle.”

He glanced back at Felix. “The same will happen for you,” he added. “The more you say no to being what they made you, the more you’ll know who you are.”

Felix’s chest ached. “What if I don’t like him?” he whispered. “The person I find.”

Chan’s answer was instant. “Then we keep going,” he said. “Until you do.”

Felix stared at him. The room blurred around the edges.

“Enough for today,” he said suddenly.

Chan’s brows lifted. “You want me to—”

“No,” Felix said quickly. “I mean… enough heavy thoughts. Enough law. Enough… sea.” He swallowed. “Can you tell me something… stupid? Something that has nothing to do with me. Or them. Or trials.”

Chan’s mouth curved. “Stupid,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Alright.”

He sat back, eyes going a little distant with memory. “When I was thirteen,” he began, “I decided I wanted to impress the elders by hunting alone. I went out with a spear I barely knew how to use and spent three hours stalking what I thought was a very large, very dangerous wolf.”

Felix blinked. “And?”

“It was a goat,” Chan said. “A very nervous goat with a branch stuck in its horns. I tripped, rolled down a hill, and came back covered in mud with exactly one bruise and zero meat. My mother told the story to everyone within earshot for a month.”

A laugh burst out of Felix, sharp and startled and real. “You… hunted a goat.”

“In my defense, it was foggy,” Chan said. “And the goat was very judgmental.”

Felix wiped at his eyes. The burning there felt different now. Less like saltwater. More like… something cleaning away.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

“For humiliating myself?” Chan asked.

“For staying,” Felix said. “For… not biting. For… all of it.”

Chan’s expression went soft around the edges. “You’re welcome,” he said simply.

He stayed until Felix’s eyes slid shut again and his breathing evened out. Only then did he rise, moving with slow care, and slip back toward the doorway.

At the threshold, he paused. The moon, finally free of cloud, spilled a thin bar of light across the floor. It caught on Felix’s hair, on the bandage at his wrist, on the finger still curled as if holding onto something in sleep.

“Trial by night,” Chan whispered to no one. “Debt by day. We keep going.”

Then he stepped into the corridor, leaving the room to its quiet and the mountain to its slow, patient breathing.

Outside, on the dark terrace, the marks of the trial already began to frost over. The stone remembered teeth and restraint both.

Inside, beneath a healer-wing lantern, a storm omega slept through the night without waking screaming for the first time in years.