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The sun had barely crested the horizon when Bavanda opened her eyes.
She didn’t stretch. She didn’t groan or savor the quiet. She simply rose, the way she had been doing every day since the battle ended—as if peace were a glass floor beneath her, and any hesitation might crack it.
The pack still slept. Outside, faint mist curled between trees and the air was hushed. Only a few early sentries moved through the clearing, and the distant calls of birds signaled that dawn had finally taken its breath.
Her boots were already by the door. Her hair half-braided from the night before. She had a list in her head, like she always did.
Check the infirmary tents. Rotate the southern patrols. Visit the west garden where new herbs were being nurtured…
None of those came first, however. She walked instead to the small hill where the packhouse stood, its old wooden stairs groaning under her weight. She went straight to that one room where she lay.
Avynna.
She was still, Bavanda noticed, beautiful in a haunting, eternal way. Wrapped in light linens, her chest rose and fell gently, like the tide hadn’t decided whether to take her or let her stay. Alexander’s drawings decorated the walls now—clumsy wolves and flowers and spirals. Someone had left wildflowers in a chipped vase.
Bavanda sat beside the bed. Her hands hovered over her mother’s before she pulled back, afraid to disturb the fragile stillness.
“Morning, mama,” she murmured, voice hoarse from a night of little sleep. “Everything’s quiet today. The eastern ridge held. The scouts said the trees are growing again.”
No reply, just the soft rustle of leaves beyond the window. She leaned forward, pressing her forehead to Avynna’s arm, breathing in silence like it was her penance.
Footsteps approached, slow and careful. She didn’t look up, but she heard his voice. A smile broke out on her lips. He always knew where to find her.
“I brought it with honey this time,” Loco’s voice said behind her. “Figured you’d need it. You were probably tossing in your sleep again.”
She lifted her head and turned just enough to take the clay cup from his hand. “Thanks.”
He smiled faintly, rubbing the back of his neck. “You’ll start looking like me soon—tired and mean.”
She sipped. Warmth spread through her chest. Not just from the tea. He settled beside her, stretching his legs out, eyes fixed on Avynna.
They sat like that for a while. Two people wrapped in exhaustion and something tender they didn’t know how to name.
After a long pause, Loco leaned back on his palms and said with a small, crooked grin, “You know... we live like an old married couple.”
Bavanda blinked. The tea trembled slightly in her hands.A beat of quiet followed, rhen another. His words hung there, weightless yet too heavy.
She gave him a faint smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes, and she said… nothing.
Loco looked away. It wasn’t rejection, but it wasn’t the thing he needed.
The answer was clear, even though she wouldn't say it. She didn't want to be married to him… she didn't think they could grow old together.
She stood slowly, placing the empty cup on the small dresser beside her mother. “I need to check on the wounded. See you at the gathering later?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
She left, just like that, without a single word. The door closed behind her.
The silence?
It lingered in the room like fog, like regret. Loco stared after her long after she was gone, running his hand through his hair, then whispering to no one, “You don’t have to say it. I already feel it.”
The gathering this time was smaller, mainly for the elders and the few people who knew its worth.
The air smelled of damp soil and wild sage. Evening sunlight bathed the clearing in warm gold, catching on the robes of the elders, the edges of tools, the curve of every hand that reached into the earth. Quiet murmurs wove through the crowd like a prayer—low and reverent.
This was not a festival, not a feast. It was mourning dressed in hope.
The Ceremony of Roots had always been sacred—a tradition for generations. When a warrior fell, a sapling was planted in their name. And when a sapling died, it was buried, and a new one took its place. It was the pack’s way of remembering without breaking.
Bavanda stood near the largest of the burial mounds, fingers slightly trembling around a carved wooden spade. Her shoulders were squared, but not stiff. Her eyes were calm, but not distant. Her voice—when it came—carried with it the ache of someone who had not yet begun to cry.
“We are not here to forget,” she said, speaking before them all, “but to root their memory into the soil of this land. To let their legacy rise through bark and leaf. To build again, not just with hands, but with heart.”
A hush fell over the clearing.
Behind her, Loco stood with one hand resting against the small of her back. His presence was steady. He was always there. He had helped dig the earth that morning, had wiped dirt from her palms, had whispered, you’re not alone, more with his eyes than with words.
She looked over her shoulder at him now, and for a moment, warmth flickered.
Then, an elder stepped forward. Minali—old, graceful, with silver streaking her dark braid and eyes like glassy stones. She held a small bowl of crushed herbs and petals—part of the final blessing.
“For the Alpha,” she said, sprinkling the mixture onto the roots. “For the lost.”
Then her gaze turned to Bavanda and Loco, and her voice deepened with tradition. “And for the pair who will carry us forward. May the Moon smile upon their bond. May the stars seal the fate written in their blood.”
Just as she made to touch their heads as a blessing, she froze in place. Bavanda's heart skipped, and she looked up to her.
Minali was shaking her head while taking a step back.
“What's wrong?" She managed to ask.
Milani’s expression twisted. “This blessing is not for you."
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