Reynolds’ eyes flicked toward the warped bedrail and then away again.
Mac let that sit for a second. “The important part is this,” he said. “It doesn’t take you unless you let it.”
Reynolds frowned slightly. “Let it?”
“You decide how you carry it,” Mac said. “Hold the line and it becomes part of you. Lose it…”
Mac didn’t finish.
Reynolds understood anyway. “So what am I becoming?” he asked quietly.
Mac didn’t rush the answer. “Something that already exists,” he said. “Something that lives under rules older than the Army.”
Reynolds absorbed that without panic. He nodded slowly, jaw tight. “And you two know about this,” Reynolds said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” Mac said.
Reynolds looked between them, not accusing, just recalculating the world. “What happens now?”
“You stabilize,” Mac said. “You learn control. They’ll move you somewhere better equipped for it once you’re steady.”
Reynolds nodded again, slower this time.
Mac watched him a moment longer. “You’re still you,” Mac said quietly. “Don’t let anyone talk you out of that.”
Reynolds held his gaze. “Yes, sir.”
That sounded steadier. Mac let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Then he looked at Melvin, finally letting his gaze meet his. The air between them held too much fear, anger, something tender under it that neither of them could afford to name in front of a medic who might walk in at any moment. “They’re going to try to split us,” Mac said quietly.
Melvin didn’t deny it. “They’re going to try to reduce us,” he replied, voice low. “To causes and effects.”
Mac’s wolf stirred, restless now, not in threat but in recognition of a predator that wasn’t tooth and claw. It was bureaucracy dressed in old language. Mac’s voice dropped further. “We don’t give them more than they earn.”
Melvin’s gaze sharpened. “And we don’t abandon him.”
Mac glanced at Reynolds. “No,” he said. “We teach him to stand on his own feet.”
Reynolds shifted faintly under the sheet, sweat slick along his brow, breath still working hard. Mac watched him for a long moment, thenspoke in the same steady tone he used on patrol when the road ahead looked too quiet. “This is going to hurt,” Mac told him. “Not like a wound. Like training hurts. You’ll hate it. You’ll want to quit. You won’t.”
Reynolds’ eyes stayed on Mac, and something in them steadied, not trust exactly, but recognition that Mac was not offering comfort. He was offering a path.
Mac straightened. “Get some rest,” he said. “When you wake up, we start building your anchor.”
Reynolds’ breathing hitched once, then eased. He nodded again, slow this time.
Mac turned toward the door, then stopped, the last line the High Steward had spoken replaying in his mind. Attached. Strength and liability. Mac had been trained to accept that attachment was weakness. That caring made you sloppy. That love made you stupid. He’d built a career on being sharp enough to survive that belief. And yet, when he looked at Melvin standing there, steady even with anger burning through him, the truth in Mac’s chest didn’t feel like a liability. It felt like the only reason he was still standing upright.
“We’re being watched now,” Mac said quietly.
Melvin’s voice was almost a whisper. “We already were.”
Mac nodded once. Then, because he couldn’t help it and because he couldn’t afford to pretend it didn’t matter, he added, “Stay close.”
Melvin’s eyes softened for the briefest moment. “Always,” he replied.
And that single word, simple, unadorned, felt more dangerous than the High Steward’s threats. Because it meant Mac would havesomething to lose. And the Stewardry had just proven it knew exactly how to use that.
Chapter 12 - Melvin
