Sentence To Him

Wren's POV

The iron cuffs bit into my wrists like teeth, and I felt every sharp edge of them, as the two enforcers dragged me through the corridor.

My heels scraped against the ancient stone floor, and my muscles screamed in protest as I fought against their grip, twisting and pulling with everything I had left.

"Let me go!" I shouted, my voice echoing off the walls and bouncing back at me, hollow and desperate. "I have rights! I demand to know what I am being charged with!"

Neither enforcer responded. The one on my left, a broad-shouldered man with a scar cutting through his eyebrow, simply tightened his grip until I felt the bones in my wrist grind together.

The one on my right was younger, with eyes that refused to meet mine, keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead as though looking at me might somehow contaminate him.

"Did you hear me?" I tried again, hating the way my voice cracked on the words, hating the desperation bleeding through. "I said I demand to know what I am being charged with! You cannot drag me through this academy without telling me why!"

"Save your strength," the scarred enforcer muttered, his voice flat and disinterested. "You will need it for the tribunal."

"The tribunal?" I twisted harder, trying to force him to look at me. "What tribunal? What are you talking about? I have not done anything!"

"You will hear the charge inside," the younger enforcer said quietly, finally meeting my eyes for a fraction of a second before looking away again. "That is all we are permitted to say."

"Permitted?" I laughed, and it sounded bitter and broken even to my own ears. "Permitted by whom? Who decided that I do not even get to know what I am accused of before you parade me through the entire academy like some kind of criminal?"

Neither of them answered.

Students lined the corridor on both sides, pressing against the walls like spectators at a public execution. I recognized faces as I passed, faces that had shared meals with me in the dining hall, faces that had laughed at my jokes, and faces that had studied beside me in the library until the small hours of the morning. Now those same faces stared at me with expressions ranging from shock to horror to something that looked almost like satisfaction.

"What did she do?" a voice whispered from somewhere in the crowd, loud enough for me to hear, soft enough that its owner probably thought I would not.

"They are saying it is a Code violation," another voice answered, hushed and urgent. "Something about the founders' vaults."

"The founders' vaults?" I shouted, twisting toward the sound of the voices. "Who said that? Who told you I went anywhere near the founders' vaults? I do not even know where they are!"

The students nearest me flinched back, and the scarred enforcer yanked me forward hard enough that I stumbled.

"Keep moving," he growled. "You are not helping yourself."

"I am not helping myself?" I pulled against his grip, my wrists burning where the cuffs cut into my skin. "Someone is spreading lies about me, and you are telling me not to defend myself? What kind of justice is that?"

"The kind where you keep your mouth shut until you are standing before the Council," he replied flatly. "Now walk, or I will drag you the rest of the way."

"The founders' vaults?" a third voice cut in from the crowd, older and colder than the first two. "That is impossible. No student can even access those."

"Apparently she found a way," someone else answered, and the words landed like stones in my stomach.

"I found a way?" I stopped dead, forcing both enforcers to halt or drag me off my feet. "I found a way? I have never even seen the vaults! I do not know the first thing about pack magic or founders' bloodlines or any of it!"

"Move," the scarred enforcer commanded, yanking me forward again.

"My brother," I tried, searching the crowd desperately for Elias's face. "Where is my brother? Has anyone seen Elias Kestrel? Does he know what is happening?"

No one answered. The faces blurred past me as a sea of strangers who had once been classmates, and none of them met my eyes for longer than a heartbeat.

"Briar?" I called out, my voice rising in desperation. "Briar Sinclaire? Is she here? Has anyone seen her?"

"She is not here," a girl I vaguely recognized from my advanced theory seminar said, her voice small and uncertain. "I saw her earlier, but she looked like she was crying and someone said she was taken to be questioned."

"Questioned?" I dug my heels into the stone, forcing the enforcers to drag me rather than walk. "Question about what? Briar has not done anything! She is my roommate, she is…"

"She is the one who reported the theft," another voice cut in, sharp and accusing. "That is what I heard, anyway. She is the one who told the enforcers where to find the evidence."

"That is not true," I said, but my voice came out weak and uncertain even to my own ears. "That cannot be true. Briar would never… she would not…"

"Enough," the scarred enforcer snapped, and this time when he pulled me forward, I did not fight him. I could not, because all the strength had drained out of me and was replaced by a cold with a creeping dread that settled into my bones and refused to leave.

"What happened last night?" I asked aloud, not realizing I had spoken until the younger enforcer glanced at me. "I remember studying, I remember Briar saying goodnight and I remember a knock at the door and then nothing but a void where memory should be."

"That is convenient," the scarred enforcer muttered.

"It is not convenient, it is terrifying!" I pulled against his grip again, desperate to make him understand. "Something happened to me last night. Someone must have done something to me. I would not just forget hours of my life. That is not possible but I do not…"

"You do not know what?" he interrupted, his voice hard. "You do not remember committing a crime? That is what they all say. Every wolf who stands before that tribunal claims innocence. Every single one."

"Then maybe some of them were innocent!" I shot back. "Maybe some of them were telling the truth and no one listened!"

He did not answer, and we kept moving.

The corridor stretched on forever, or maybe it just felt that way because every step brought me closer to something I could not escape.

The tribunal chamber doors loomed ahead, with a massive oak carved with the symbols of the founding families. I had walked past them a hundred times in my four years at Blackthorn Academy, and had seen them from a distance,but those moments it was always closed, always forbidding. I had never imagined I would enter them as anything other than a spectator.

"Is it true?" I asked, my voice quieter now. "What they said about Briar reporting me. Is it true?"

The younger enforcer's jaw tightened, and he looked away.

"I do not know," he admitted. "But someone reported you and the evidence was found exactly where they said it would be."

"So I am supposed to believe my roommate turned on me?" I shook my head, the motion making my restraints pull tighter. "Briar would not do that, she would not. There has to be another explanation."

"Maybe there is," he said, and for a moment his voice softened. "But you are going to have to convince the Council of that, not us."

The scarred enforcer stopped in front of the massive doors, and I felt my heart drop into my stomach.

"Here we are," he announced, as though I could not see for myself. "Try to keep your mouth shut in there. It will not help you, but it will not hurt you either."

"Will you at least tell me the charge before they open those doors?" I asked, and I hated the pleading in my voice, I hated the way I sounded like a child begging for scraps of information. "Please, just tell me what I am supposed to have done."

"You will hear it soon enough," he replied, and then he pushed the doors open.

The tribunal chamber was smaller than I had imagined, more intimate, more terrifying. Twelve figures sat in an elevated semicircle above the floor where I stood, each one robed in the formal colors of the High Pack Council and each one watching me with expressions I could not read. At the center, slightly elevated above the others, sat Regent Aurelia Voss.

I had seen her before, of course. Everyone had seen Regent Voss. She was the face of the Council's public authority, the woman who presided over ceremonies and addressed the packs on matters of importance. But I had never been this close to her, never felt the weight of her attention focused entirely on me.

She was smaller than I expected, delicate almost, with silver threading through her dark hair and eyes that held the calm of someone who had never once doubted her own authority. She looked at me the way a scholar might look at an interesting specimen, curious but detached, already certain of the outcome.

"Wren Kestrel," she said, and her voice carried effortlessly through the chamber, soft and unhurried. "You stand before this Council accused of a grave violation of the Founders' Code."

"Accused of what?" I demanded, and the enforcers' warnings about keeping my mouth shut vanished from my mind. "No one will tell me what I am supposed to have done. They dragged me through the entire academy like a criminal, and no one has said a single word about the charge!"

Voss's expression flickered, with something almost like interest passing through her eyes before her composure reasserted itself.

"The charge will be read in due course," she said, her voice smooth and calm. "You will speak when permitted."

"With respect, Regent Voss," I said, and I heard the sharpness in my own voice, the edge of anger cutting through the fear, "I have been kept in the dark since I woke up this morning in a holding cell I do not remember being brought to. I have been dragged through this academy in chains while my classmates whispered about crimes I did not commit. I have the right to know what I am being accused of before I am made to stand here like a spectacle."

The Council murmured among themselves, and I saw several members exchange glances. One of them, an older woman with steel-gray hair, frowned at me openly.

"Your rights are not determined by your demands," she said coldly. "You will show respect to this Council, or you will be removed and the proceedings will continue without you."

"I am sorry," I said, and forced myself to take a breath, forcing the anger down. "I am sorry, I am not trying to be disrespectful. I am just… I do not understand what is happening, I do not know why I am here, I do not remember anything from last night, and no one will tell me what I am supposed to have done."

"You do not remember anything?" Voss asked, leaning forward slightly. "That is an interesting claim."

"It is not a claim," I insisted. "It is the truth. I was studying in my dormitory when someone knocked on my door, and then I woke up in a cell. I do not remember anything in between."

Voss studied me for a long moment, her expression unreadable.

"The charge," she said finally, gesturing to a scribe who stood near the edge of the chamber, "will be read aloud now."

The scribe stepped forward, a thin man with spectacles perched on his nose, holding an official document that looked heavy with consequence. He cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice trembled slightly, as though even him was unsettled by what he was about to say.

"Wren Kestrel, final-year student of Blackthorn Academy, you stand accused of violating the Founders' Code. Specifically, the theft and attempted sale of pack magic bound to the founding bloodlines, a crime carrying the sentence of the Culling.”

Wren's POV

The scribe kept reading, and every word landed like a stone dropped into still water.

"The accused is further charged with unauthorized entry into a sealed vault belonging to the Blackthorn family line," the scribe said, his voice trembling slightly as he read. "Removal of three artifacts of concentrated pack magic, attempted transport of the said artifacts beyond the academy's eastern boundary and attempted the sales of said artifacts to unknown parties outside Council jurisdiction."

"I have never been in the vaults," I said, and my voice came out sharp enough that the scribe flinched. "I do not know how to get into the vaults and I do not know what is inside the vaults. I have never even seen the vaults."

"The evidence speaks for itself," the steel-haired Council member said, and she did not look at me when she said it. "The artifacts were recovered from your possession."

"Then show them to me," I demanded, twisting toward her. "Show