Chapter 2: The Return After Three Years

The day after the ceremony, the council of elders sent people to the clinic.

Two elders and a clerk arrived, a dispatch case tucked under one arm, the revocation order inside. The lead elder spread the paper across the examination table, his tone clipped and official: "Physician Sella—or rather, Sella. The council has ruled: now that you are no longer a partner candidate, your pack-physician badge is revoked, effective immediately. Please hand over the clinic key as well."

Sella had been organizing the medicine cabinet. At the words, she set the bottles in her hands back into their proper slots, one by one, before turning around. "On what grounds?"

"The grounds are written right there." The clerk slid the order forward a few inches. "One who cannot take wolf-form may not hold the seat of pack-physician. This is an old law."

She glanced at the paper. She did not argue, and she did not beg. She unbuckled the physician's badge from her chest and set it on the table; metal tapped wood with a faint, sharp ring. Then she dragged an iron box out from the very bottom shelf of the cabinet and began shuffling her years of apothecary notes into it, one volume at a time—drug pairings, dosages, illustrated charts of poisonous herbs, every case she had logged through the night watches. All of it went in.

"The notes should be surrendered, too, wouldn't you think?" The clerk stared at the iron box.

"The order lists the badge and the key, and nothing else." Sella closed the lid, locked it, and pushed the box back to the bottom of the cabinet, tucking old objects on top of it for good measure. "The notes are my own writing. If they want them, the council is welcome to draft another order."

That evening she packed a small travel bag. Before she left, she took the silver medallion her mother had left her—engraved with the white-wolf sigil—out of the drawer, threaded it onto a fine chain, and hung it close against her skin. The silver was ice-cold against her throat; the raised ridges of the wolf pressed into her collarbone. She stood at the clinic doorway, looked back once at the locked cabinet, then turned and walked into the dusk without drawing a single glance.

Three years later, winter came to Frostpine Town fiercer than in any year before.

First the pups fell ill in clusters, running high fevers. Then the adult wolves began to convulse and cough up blood. The town clinic overflowed. The old physician went three days without closing his eyes and finally collapsed himself. The council sent a midnight plea to the neighboring pack, and the neighboring pack's mobile medical team came at the invitation. The day the convoy rolled through the town gate, half the town stood out in the snow to watch.

The vehicle door opened and Maeve O'Connor leaped out first, her dark-green uniform coat flecked with snow kicked up by the long ride. She turned back to help the passenger down, then called out to the elders who had come forward to meet them: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is our team's specially recruited lead physician and chief apothecary. For the past three years, every major epidemic in the neighboring pack has been brought under her control. Your patients are in her hands."

Sella stepped down from the vehicle. A white physician's long coat, dark-grey trousers, flat-soled ankle boots, hair pulled back into a low ponytail, and a leather wristband around her arm holding neat rows of small medicine vials. A fine chain hung at her neck, the pendant tucked inside her collar, giving off only a small flash of silver when she lowered her head.

A murmur rippled through the crowd.

"Isn't that… Sella?"

"Didn't she leave three years ago? How is she the lead of the patrol team?"

Jonah Thorne stood before the elders' seats, his ebony cane striking the frozen ground with a heavy thud, his face dark and ugly. "Captain Maeve, we requested the patrol team. Bringing back a woman whose badge the council revoked—what is that supposed to mean?"

"Supposed to mean what?" Maeve slung her medical pack over her shoulder, her voice matching his in volume, not a decibel less. "It means your people are dying and mine can save them. Old Jonah—if you think face matters more than lives, wave the convoy away right now. I won't stop you."

Jonah's cane thudded once more, but in the end the words that would have sent her away never came.

Sella paid no heed to the gazes. She walked straight through the clinic door, took in the examination room packed so tight you could not have wedged a blade between patients, set her medical pack on the table, and spoke. Her voice was not loud, yet the room's clamor fell silent in a single breath.

"Let me lay out the rules up front." She said it, and the silence held. "Once you step through this door, no house rank, no surname. Critical cases first, minor ones after. A man of House Cross queues up; a stray wolf's pup queues up. Whoever is in the worst shape gets treated first. Anyone who objects—out the door, it's behind you. The rest of you: clear the aisle, boil water, free up beds."

A servant from House Cross stuck out his chin and opened his mouth: "You, a woman whose badge has been—

"My badge is in your council's hands." Sella cut him off, lifting her gaze to him, grey-blue eyes cold as a sheet of ice. "My skill is in my own hands. If you want to fight for a place on behalf of your masters, ask whether the child in that bed agrees first."

Before her words had fully landed, the doorway saw another figure carried in—an adult guard from House Cross, his arm wrapped in a cloth already weeping blood. The steward who accompanied him shoved his way to the front of the examination table: "Treat our people first! He's on the patrol detail and his wounds have been waiting half the day. What's the harm in making those unaffiliated folks from town wait their turn?"

"The one who should go to the back row is him." Sera had already crouched down beside a bench at the edge of the corridor. On the bench lay an old stray wolf, delirious from a high fever, his lips cracked and dry, no one by his side to care for him. She felt his pulse, not lifting her head. "He's been burning with fever for four days. His pulse is already floating and shallow. If we leave him another half day, he won't make it. Your guard's wounds are just flesh injuries, the bleeding has stopped, he can walk in on his own two legs. He can wait. Tell me, which one gets treated first?"

The steward's face flushed red. "He's just a stray. Is that worth your—"

"In my clinic, lives aren't weighed by surnames." Sera stood up and called out, "Maeve, give the old man water and bring his fever down first. The guard can go to the left side for wound cleaning. I'll suture it later. Anyone who cuts in line again can take a number and wait outside—this is my room, and I call the shots here. That's also the condition under which I was invited back. The Council signed off on it."

The steward opened his mouth, glanced at Jonah, who was leaning on his cane at the entrance, and seeing the old elder say nothing, reluctantly supported the guard and moved him to the side. The corridor instantly cleared. Several townspeople who had been huddled in the corners looked at each other, then quietly stepped forward, holding their febrile children a little closer.

After tending to the old wolf, Sera turned, and her gaze swept to the examination bed at the very back of the room. Her steps stopped abruptly.

Lying on that bed was a pup, barely seven or eight months old, wrapped in a wool blanket. He was burning red from the fever, his limbs convulsing in spasms, his jaws clenching with a soft, grinding crackle. The mother staying by his side had already cried until she had no voice left.

Sera crossed the room in three strides. She checked the temperature of his forehead, then gently pried open the pup's eyelids to take a look. Her fingers found the thin wrist and counted the pulse.

"High fever with convulsions. If we wait another moment, we'll damage the brain." As she spoke, she unclipped two small vials from her wristband, her hands steady without a tremor. "Maeve, cold water and towels, and bring my compounding bowl. The antipyretic needs to be mixed fresh right now. Halve the dose for the body weight. Silver powder—just a touch, no more. Too much is poison; too little and it won't hold the fever back."

"You still dare use silver powder?" Jonah's voice rang out sharply from the doorway. "A pup's life is a life too!"

"Because it *is* a life, I'm using my own formula." Sera didn't lift her head. The liquid in the bowl swirled until the color shifted from murky to clear. "The old physician's formula failed to bring the fever down for three days. If I don't use mine, we'll be preparing a small coffin for this child by tonight. Elder, if you want to stop me, say that to the child's mother first."

The woman crouching by the bed dropped to her knees and clung to Sera's leg. "Physician, save him. Do whatever you need to. I trust you!"

Jonah's lips moved, but he ultimately stepped back.

The medicine was fed in, spoon by spoon. At first, the pup was still convulsing, its claws tearing a hole in the blanket. Sera pressed one hand on its shoulder, using a cold towel to wipe behind its ears and its groin with the other, counting aloud so Maeve could time it. Half a stick of incense passed, and the intervals between spasms stretched longer. The scalding fur gradually cooled, and his breathing leveled out.

A moment later, the pup's eyelids fluttered and opened.

He didn't cry, nor did he seek out his mother. Bracing himself on four legs that were still a bit weak, he slowly turned on the examination bed to face Sera. He lowered his body, his forehead nearly touching the bed, the fur on the back of his neck lying flat and passive—it was the posture of submission a wolf pup only showed to elders of the bloodline. Lying low, neck exposed, not a muscle trembling.

The clinic fell silent as a tomb.

"It... it's bowing to her?" someone murmured.

Maeve, standing nearby, took a sharp, quiet breath and lowered her voice. "Sera, you saw it. He recognizes you."

Sera froze for a split second. She reached down and lifted the pup, wrapping him back in the blanket, her movements returning to their usual brisk efficiency. "The fever's breaking. He'll need watching tonight, water every hour. The mother stays to keep him company. Everyone else, you can go. Don't block the corridor—there are more patients behind you."

The crowd slowly dispersed. Amid the retreating footsteps, one gaze remained fixed on her.

Damon Thorne stood in the shadows by the clinic's entrance; no one knew how long he had been there. In his hand, he held a glass of wine—likely a serving from the Council for the patrol team—and his fingers gripped the rim so tightly that, at the exact moment the pup had lowered his head, a sharp crack had run through the glass. The wine seeped from the fracture, dripping down through his fingers, but he didn't seem to notice. Through the thinning crowd, he stared at her.

Sera handed the pup to his mother and looked up, meeting that gaze directly.

Three years. He was still the same. Black suit, silver wolf-fang pendant. The things in the depths of his eyes had only grown heavier since then, like carrying a blizzard that had never finished falling.

"Long time no see." Damon's voice was a bit hoarse. The cracked glass was still in his hand.

Sella did not take up the remark. In that very instant, the silver moon-mark on her wrist grew scalding hot through the cuff of her sleeve, as though a small flame were pressed flat against her skin and flesh, burning so fiercely that her fingertips gave a slight curl. Without a flicker of expression, she drew the sleeve down a little, hiding the flare of heat.

Maeve, however, was already hurrying in from outside the door at that same moment, a freshly delivered document from the Council of Elders clutched in her hand, her face set and unpleased. "Sella, the Council has just made their ruling — this very week. The full-moon gathering will be held as planned. They've put out the word: your blood is to be tested in public at the gathering."