Lena noticed the change before anyone spoke of it.
It was in the way servants stopped pretending not to see her. In the way conversations quieted—not when she entered, but after she passed. It was in the subtle shift of space, the way the hall no longer seemed to close around her shoulders quite so tightly.
Training left marks.
Not bruises. Not sweat.
Awareness.
She returned from the lower grounds that afternoon with dirt on her hem and her hair pulled loose from its braid. Her body ached in places she hadn't known existed, but the ache felt earned. Real. She carried herself differently without meaning to.
Her mother saw it instantly.
She stood near the hearth when Lena entered, hands folded neatly at her waist. Elira sat nearby, embroidering quietly, her head lifting in confusion when she noticed the silence stretch.
"What have you been doing?" her mother asked.
The question was mild.
The tone was not.
Lena stopped a few steps into the room. Old instinct told her to lower her eyes. She didn't.
"Training," she said.
The word settled like a stone dropped into still water.
"Training," her mother repeated slowly. "With whom?"
Lena hesitated only a moment. "The Alpha."
Elira's needle slipped, pricking her finger. She hissed softly, more startled than hurt.
Her mother did not move.
For a long heartbeat, Lena thought she might pretend she hadn't heard. That she might dismiss it, wave it away as nonsense.
Instead, she smiled.
It was a thin thing. Careful. Practiced.
"How generous of him," her mother said. "To take an interest."
Lena said nothing.
Her mother stepped closer. "You must be careful not to misunderstand attention for intention."
"I'm not," Lena replied.
That earned her a sharper look.
"You are being allowed something," her mother continued, voice lowering. "That does not mean you are owed it."
"I never said I was."
Her mother's smile faltered.
"You forget yourself," she said quietly.
Lena felt her wolf stir—not in anger, not in fear. In warning.
"I'm remembering," she answered.
The room went very still.
Elira looked between them, uncertain. "Mother?"
Her mother lifted a hand without looking at her. "Go."
Elira hesitated. Then stood and left, closing the door behind her.
The air thickened.
"You think this changes things," her mother said. "That a few hours in the dirt makes you something you are not."
Lena's fingers curled slowly at her sides. "I think it shows what I already was."
Her mother laughed softly. "You were nothing without this house."
The words should have hurt more than they did.
Instead, Lena felt a strange calm settle over her.
"I survived without it," she said.
Her mother's composure cracked then—not loudly, not violently, but enough.
"You are here because I allowed it," she snapped. "Because I chose to keep you."
"No," Lena said, voice steady. "I was here because you couldn't get rid of me without questions."
Silence fell like a blade.
Her mother stared at her as though seeing her for the first time.
"Be very careful," she said. "You forget whose blood you carry."
Lena met her gaze. "So do you."
The slap never came.
Instead, her mother stepped back, breath sharp, eyes cold with something Lena recognized at last.
Fear.
"You will ruin everything," her mother said. "You already are."
Lena thought of the clearing. Of the way the ground had answered her. Of the Alpha's voice—calm, certain—telling her she had stayed.
"I won't," Lena replied. "But I won't disappear anymore either."
Her mother turned away abruptly. "Get out of my sight."
Lena did.
She walked the corridor slowly, heart pounding, not because she had spoken—but because she had not apologized.
Behind her, something old and carefully buried had begun to fracture.
And her mother knew it.