Page 160 of House of Crimson Cloak and Silver Teeth

On the second night, they discuss my fate.

“The guild would probably want him displayed,” Stark says, poking at their campfire. He uses a stick to shift the burning logs, sending sparks spiraling up into the dark. The fire casts dancing shadows across his face. “A warning to others considering desertion.”

They debate my future like I’m not there.

I lie with my head on my paws and try not to think about Garrett. The collar pulses, sensing my distress. It goes warm against my neck, responding to the spike in my emotional state. Every strong emotion triggers a response. It’s monitoring me constantly, reading through my emotions.

Fuck it. Not even my thoughts are private.

I can’t even grieve or rage or despair privately. My last refuge has been stripped away.

The next morning, Aelfheim’s walls rise into view through the trees.

The white stone of the Atlas glows against the dark forest behind us. It is at least fifty feet high, built to withstand sieges and armies. Guard towers punctuate the perimeter at regular intervals. Banners flutter from the battlements, the Queen’s colors visible even from this distance.

This is where everything fell apart.

Quinnlan signals a halt before we reach the walls. He raises one hand, signalling for us to stop. We’re maybe a hundred yards from the main gates. Both hunters remove their masks, revealing the faces beneath. They tuck the masks into their packs, transforming instantly from guild hunters into ordinary travelers. Without the masks, they lose their menace and otherness. They could be young merchants or scholars.

The city guards barely glance at us as we approach the gates. They seem bored as they wave through most travelers without any thorough inspections. Two travelers returning with a hunting dog isn’t unusual enough to warrant attention, just another day’s work in a city that sees everything.

One guard glances at me and takes in the wolf form. He sees the collar and dismisses me as irrelevant. We’re waved through without even stopping. I’ve entered and exited this city countless times as Wolf the assassin.

Today I entered as a real wolf and a failure.

The smells of the city assault me the moment we’re inside the walls. Thousands of people packed into streets and buildings, their scents blending into one overwhelming chaos. I can distinguish individuals in the crowd by scent alone. I even know their stories. That lady had eggs for breakfast, that gardener is dying of lung disease, that child hasn’t bathed in days.

The undercurrent beneath all the human smells is waste and decay. Sewage runs beneath the cobblestones mixing with smoke from chimneys. My stomach growls at the scent of roasting meat from food vendors despite everything.

Somewhere to my left, someone is cooking sausages. The smell is rich, fatty, delicious. My mouth waters involuntarily. It doesn’t matter that I’m being marched to my doom. I’m hungry and I want to eat. The simplicity of the response is almost comforting in its animal purity.

Then I catch something that makes me freeze.

I stop dead in the middle of the street, every muscle going rigid. My head swings toward the scent before I can stop myself. The hunters notice immediately. Quinnlan’s hand goes to the collar controls, ready to compel me forward if I try to bolt.

Garrett’s scent.

Sandalwood and smoke and him. The recognition is instant and devastating. My wolf senses can track it through all the chaos. It’s unmistakable even buried under a thousand other smells.

I can see it in my mind’s eye. The trail is maybe a day old, leading from the palace district toward Elvarstyne Keep.

“Finally,” Quinnlan exhales slowly as we reach our destination.

The guild house looms ahead at the end of a narrow street. I’ve never been to the Aelfheim chapter before but it looks like every guild house I’ve ever known.

They’re all built to the same specifications, the same dark aesthetic whether in Tiamat or Vennhold or here in Aelfheim.

Three stories of black stone with reinforced doors and no windows on the ground floor. This structure is built to keep things in rather than keep things out. The door is solid metal banded with steel, secured with locks that would take a battering ram to break. There are no handles on the outside and it only opens from within. They convey a clear meaning.

Entry is by invitation only, and exit is at the guild’s discretion.

This is a place where people disappear.

“Delivery for the quartermaster,” Quinnlan announces at the entrance. He is suddenly formal, clipped, and professional. So is Stark.

We’re led inside by a silent guard. He is easily six and a half feet tall, shoulders broad enough to fill the doorway. The guard gestures for us to follow and turns to lead us deeper into the building. His face is scarred and expressionless.

The corridors make my enhanced hearing ache with overlapping heartbeats and whispered conversations.