Chapter 202

Lila

The mornings in Silver Glen always began the same way: slow and steady, and a brief self-talk to reassure myself everything was safe.

I opened the shutters before dawn to let in what little light there was, then stoked the hearth until the fire roared back to life.

The cottage was small but cozy, every corner worn in with love. Dried herbs hung in rows from the rafters, the lavender, chamomile, and wild mint soothing in their scent and a reminder of the life I’d rebuilt here.

By the time the villagers began to knock, the twins were already awake.

Auren’s laughter echoed from the next room, followed by the steady thump of Lucien’s small feet chasing her across the floorboards. Their energy was endless and bright as the sunrise, a contrast to the calm I tried to keep around us.

“Breakfast first,” I called, pouring warm milk into two small cups. They appeared almost instantly, hair wild, cheeks flushed and rumpled from sleep.

Auren reached for the cup too quickly, spilling some across the table. I smiled despite myself, wiping it clean with a cloth. “You have your father’s impatience,” I murmured before I could stop the words from tumbling out.

The room seemed to still for a heartbeat.

Lucien tilted his head. “What, Mama?”

“Nothing, love.” I kissed his hair and passed him his cup. “Finish that before it cools.”

My first visitor of the day was a young female clutching a feverish child. I recognized her from the mill, cheeks hollow, eyes full of worry.

“Come in,” I said, gesturing her to the chair near the hearth. “Set him here. It’s just a fever. I’ll make a tincture.”

When I pressed my hand to the child’s brow, Ruby stirred. The faint silver warmth of my healing rose through my palms, steady and gentle.

The fever broke within moments and the boy exhaled, body relaxing against in his mother’s arms.

“Thank you,” the woman breathed. “They call you the Silver Healer for a reason.”

I smiled faintly and handed her a small pouch of herbs for the road. “Boil this in water before mid-day and have him sip it with some bread. He’ll be fine by the evening meal.”

Her gratitude followed her out the door and into the cold.

I worked through the morning that way; setting bones, mixing poultices, checking on elders who needed company more than they needed medicine.

The villagers had learned to respect my preference for quiet introversion. They didn’t ask where I’d come from or why I wore no pack crest. They didn’t care, my ability to heal was more enough for them.

When the last patient left for the day, I closed up the apothecary and stepped outside.

The world was white and still, smoke curling up from chimneys, the sky the color of dirty pearls. Snow dusted the twins’ hair as they ran in circles chasing each other, shrieking with laughter.

I leaned against the picket fence and watched them, heart full and aching all at once. Every day they grew more into themselves…and more like Damon.

Lucien’s strong jaw, Auren’s stubborn streak. Even their eyes betrayed them: pale gold when they laughed, molten when the sun hit just right.

The resemblance hurt, but I wouldn’t change a thing. They were the proof of what I was strong enough to leave, and the only reason I kept going every day.

A villager passing by called out, “Your babes have the eyes of the sun, Healer.”

I smiled politely, pretending my stomach hadn’t tightened at the words. “So it would seem.”

When they ran back to me, I crouched to fix Auren’s scarf, tucking it snug against her throat. Her breath fogged against my cheek as he whispered, “I wanna go to the river Mama. Can we go now?”

“After the work is done, my love,” I said softly. “Always after.”

She nodded, satisfied. Lucien pressed his hand into mine, small fingers curling around my palm with absolute trust.

The twins were advanced for their age. Ruby and I agreed it was likely a result of the burst of power when I took the antidote during their birth. No matter the reason, I was grateful they were both healthy and happy.

I lifted my gaze toward the tree line, the mountains shadowing the horizon beyond the village. Somewhere past them, the world kept turning with Packs politics, war… but none of it concerned me anymore.

This was all that mattered. My children, and a quiet life away from the prison of court.

It was a peace built on the secret I’d die to protect.

After we had visited the river and returned home, the twins fell quickly asleep, and the cottage had gone still for the night.

The fire had burned down to a soft red glow, as I sat at the table beneath the drying herbs, grinding valerian root into powder, the pestle turning in my hand without thought. The rhythm soothed me; press, twist, release, repeat.

Two years had passed since I last saw the world beyond this valley, yet some nights it felt far too close, like the past was waiting just beyond the trees, a patient hunter.

I kept my wards strong, the scent barriers hidden among the herb smoke. No one in Silver Glen knew what I was or who I had been, and that was the only reason I could sleep at all.

I looked toward the small beds tucked beside the hearth in the twin’s room. Ronan had built an extension on the cottage shortly after they were born so that the babies would have their own space. Or rather, so that I would.

Auren slept curled on her side, one arm flung protectively over Lucien’s chest. Their breathing rose and fell in perfect rhythm. My heart twisted at the sight.

They were growing so fast; Auren’s hair darkening, Lucien growing tall. Their wolves were still dormant, but sometimes when they dreamed, I caught a faint shimmer of gold light under their skin, fighting to break free.

I swallowed the ache that thought brought with it.

You can’t keep running from who helped create them, Ruby murmured, her voice whispering in the back of my mind.

“I’m not running,” I whispered. “I’m protecting them.”

From Damon or from the rest of it?

The question struck deep. I stared at my hands, at the faint glow still lingering on my fingertips. “From everything. The Crown. The Court. Who Damon was becoming, being caged...”

Ruby’s tone softened. You weren’t the only one who suffered.

“I know,” I said quietly, “but he was the only one who could have stopped it without my running away.”

The silence that followed was full of understanding. Ruby and I had been broken by the same loss, and though she’d healed faster from the separation from her mate, the scars were the same.

I rose and moved through the room, checking the shutters and locks out of habit. The wards shimmered faintly as I touched the runes carved into the doorframe. They pulsed once, steady. Safe.

Outside, the snow had stopped, leaving the world blanketed and still. I caught my reflection faintly in the window: hair unbound, eyes silvery pale as frost, a woman both alive and half-gone.

The villagers called me the Silver Healer because of my light and my eyes, but they didn’t know what that name cost me.

My gaze drifted back to the twins.

I crossed to their bedside and brushed the hair from Lucien’s forehead, then Auren’s. Their skin was warm, their scent fresh and pure. I’d promised them safety, and I would keep that promise, no matter what I had to bury to do so.

Leaning close, I whispered, “No one will ever take you from me.”

Auren stirred, murmuring something I couldn’t catch before drifting back into sleep.

I straightened and turned toward the window one last time. The forest beyond the glen shimmered under moonlight, the air humming faintly with a kind of anticipation I couldn’t place.

Ruby stirred again. The air’s changing.

“I know,” I said softly. “I can feel it.”

I told myself it was only a storm coming, nothing more.

I banked the fire and slipped beneath the quilt in my own room. My eyelids grew heavy, and the last thing I heard before sleep took me was the wind brushing branches against the window, and a whispering through the birch trees I would swear was my name.