Silent howl
Chapter 1
– Silent Contract
“Name?”
Eileen didn’t speak. She simply held up the wooden token with her debt number carved into it.
The wolf-soldier at the registration desk sneered. “Another mute? Damn nobles must be getting picky. Take her in.”
Iron cuffs snapped over her wrists as she was shoved into the back of the transport wagon. Around her, others whimpered, some sobbed. She didn’t flinch.
“Northbound care duty,” someone muttered, reading from a ledger. “Frostfall Citadel. Prince Cyr Ulmir.”
The air turned cold even before the train began moving.
---
“You’re the one they sent?”
The captain stood tall in the snow-dusted station, eyeing Eileen like she was a defective blade. She nodded once.
He sniffed. “Keep your head down. Don’t speak. Don’t make eye contact. And never—ever—enter his room uninvited.”
She nodded again.
“Your contract says ten years. Survive, and you’re free. Fail, and no one will remember your name.”
She stepped onto the train, its steel shell hissing like a beast in pain. Snowflakes scattered through the open door, dissolving on her skin. She pulled her threadbare shawl tighter.
The train groaned forward, slicing through the white wilderness like a blade through bone.
---
That night, she sat alone on a bunk, staring at her reflection in the frost-covered window. Her fingers brushed the thin ribbon at her throat—a ribbon woven from her mother’s old shawl, hiding a secret that could kill her or save her.
She remembered the first time her voice broke someone.
His mind had shattered like glass.
Since then, silence had become her armor.
---
“Up!” a voice barked.
The wagon’s door flung open at dawn. Frostfall Citadel loomed ahead like a black crown of jagged ice.
“Move!”
She stepped down into knee-deep snow, her boots cracking the surface like bones beneath ice.
Inside the citadel, firelight flickered across stone walls inscribed with wolf runes. She was led through winding halls until they reached a narrow attic room beneath the fifth floor rafters. One blanket. No window. A chamberpot.
“Your quarters,” the guard grunted. “Prince’s chamber is down the north wing. You go when summoned. Not before.”
She bowed her head, silent.
---
Night came fast in the north. She was summoned at dusk.
The guard hesitated before opening the prince’s door. “Good luck, mute.”
Eileen entered.
The room was dim, warm from a fire crackling in the hearth. Furs hung from the walls, dulling the echo. And there he sat—Cyr Ulmir, the Frozen Prince.
His silver eyes met hers.
He looked younger than she expected. Paler too, like marble carved with war and regret. His legs lay stiff in reinforced braces that gleamed faintly with embedded circuitry. A faint buzz filled the silence—his nerves, or the machines keeping him upright.
“So,” he said at last, voice low and edged with disdain, “the court sends me a mute. Are they afraid I’ll bite?”
Eileen lowered her gaze, stepped forward, and knelt beside his chair.
He raised a brow. “No reply?”
She took a clean cloth from her satchel and dipped it into the washbowl by the hearth. Silent. Calm.
“You know,” Cyr mused, “the last one screamed when I threw this.”
A crystal decanter flew past her head. It shattered against the wall.
She didn’t flinch.
Instead, she picked up the shards, one by one, barehanded.
Blood dripped down her fingers.
Still, she did not speak.
He leaned forward slightly, intrigued despite himself. “How very… obedient.”
She stood, dipped the cloth again, and began cleaning the wine splatter off the stone floor.
“Or is it discipline?” he added. “Hiding something, little mouse?”
Her hands didn’t pause.
Cyr laughed, but there was no humor in it. “We’ll see how long your silence lasts.”
---
Later that night, she returned to the attic with dried blood on her palms. She knelt by the floorboards, peeled up a loose plank, and tucked a vial of white powder beside a sealed letter written years ago but never sent.
Then she whispered into the dark—so soft only the shadows heard.
“I will not fail this time.”
The fortress creaked around her like a beast breathing. Far below, a wolf howled.
And Eileen Starshade, voiceless to the world, slept with vengeance beating steady beneath her skin.
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