Cameron stokes's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

The trail led uphill through the pines. Cameron followed Fenrir and his men into the dark. Her mother's pendant rode in his fist, and her chest pulled toward it with every step. He would not give it back. She knew that now. So she stopped planning to ask. She started planning to prove. They reached a clearing where white moonflowers grew in a thick cluster. The pale petals held a soft glow in the moonlight. Cameron stopped there. The men turned. Fenrir faced her, his jaw set, his ocean eyes flat. "Keep walking," he said. "The chain is broken under your thumb," Cameron said. "The mended link. Press it and it slides. Your mother fixed it with thin wire. The ends still bite if you hold it wrong." Fenrir's fist tightened. Then, slow, he opened it. The silver feather lay flat in his palm. He turned it. His thumb found the worn link near the clasp. He pressed. The link slid, just as she said. A thread of wire caught his skin. He stared at the small cut. His breath came short. "No one knew this," he said. "Not even the men who buried her." "I knew it before I ever saw your face," Cameron said. "The pull brought me here. Not the pendant. The pendant only tells you the truth I already carried." Fenrir looked at her for a long moment. The flowers glowed between them. His men did not move. Something in his face broke loose, the hard mask he had worn at the border. He stepped close. He lifted the chain over her head and settled the feather against her collarbone. His hands shook. "It's yours," he said. "It was always yours. She meant for you to have it." The weight of the silver returned to Cameron's chest. The pull eased, as if a cord had finally gone slack. She touched the feather. She was not a thief anymore. She had proof in her own hand, worn in the open, given by the man who had called her a liar. But Fenrir did not kneel. He did not call her queen. He stepped back and the mask returned halfway. "You carry her pendant," he said. "That clears you of theft. It does not make you mate to the king." His voice dropped. "The king is my brother. He rules the pack beyond this land. He has never seen you. He does not know you live." He looked at the trail ahead. "I brought you in as my prisoner. Now I bring you in as the woman who wears my mother's feather. He will decide what you are. Not me. Not you." Cameron closed her hand around the silver. She had won it back. She had crossed into the king's land cleared of the lie. But the king was a stranger, and he waited at the end of the trail, and he had never felt the pull that led her here.