Sable did not remember how long it took her to reach the service entrance.
Time fractured into pieces she couldn't hold properly, moments slipping past marked only by pain and breath and the scrape of stone beneath her boots. The cart rattled beside her as she dragged it forward with one hand, the metal wheels catching on uneven ground, each jolt sending a fresh spike of agony through her shoulder and down her arm. Her fingers were numb from gripping too hard, her knuckles white, her jaw clenched so tightly her teeth ached.
But she did not cry.
Not because she was strong in the way the pack respected, but because crying took air, and she needed every breath just to stay upright.
The service entrance loomed ahead at last, its heavy door half ajar, lantern light spilling out onto the stone like a boundary she had to cross. Sable slowed as she reached it, her body rebelling now that the goal was in sight. Her legs trembled, her vision swam, and for a moment she thought she might collapse right there in the doorway where someone would have to see her.
She forced herself forward anyway.
Inside, the air was warmer, thick with familiar smells, and the noise of the pack house pressed in around her again. Voices echoed down the corridor, footsteps passed at a distance, and the world carried on as if nothing had happened at the edge of the grounds.
Sable leaned her forehead briefly against the stone wall just inside the door, breathing in shallow pulls while she waited for the dizziness to pass. Her shoulder screamed every time she shifted, the pain deep and nauseating now, no longer sharp but wrong in a way that made her stomach churn. She knew enough about injuries to understand what that meant.
Something wasn't right.
A servant rounded the corner ahead of her, arms full of folded cloth, and nearly collided with the cart. The woman jolted back with a startled sound, then froze as her eyes traveled over Sable's face, the dirt smeared across her cheek, the blood at the corner of her mouth, the way her left arm hung uselessly at her side.
"Oh," the woman breathed.
Sable straightened, forcing her shoulders back despite the pain. "Move," she said hoarsely, because she could not afford questions.
The servant hesitated, eyes flicking down the corridor as if weighing whether noticing Sable was dangerous. Then she stepped aside quickly, pressing herself against the wall, her gaze fixed on the floor.
Sable pushed the cart past her and kept going.
By the time she reached the wash-house, her steps had turned uneven. She abandoned the cart there, leaving it half blocking the entrance, and slipped into the narrow space beside the boiling basins where the air was thick with steam. The heat wrapped around her, making her lightheaded, but it was private enough that she could finally let her knees buckle.
She sank down against the wall, sliding until she was seated on the stone floor, her back pressed hard against it as if she could anchor herself there. The moment she stopped moving, the pain crashed in fully, overwhelming and relentless.
Sable pressed her good hand against her mouth and breathed through it.
Her shoulder throbbed with every heartbeat, a deep, grinding ache that made her want to curl inward and disappear. She knew she should check it, should test movement, but the thought of shifting it even slightly made her vision blur again.
She closed her eyes.
Images replayed without her permission, flashes of boots and hands and laughter, the sound her body had made when it gave under pressure. She swallowed hard, forcing the memories back, because letting them surface here would break her, and she didn't know how long it would take to put herself back together again.
Footsteps echoed outside the wash-house.
Sable's muscles tensed instinctively, her breath hitching, and she forced herself to listen carefully. The steps passed without slowing, voices drifting by in conversation about nothing important at all, and only then did she let herself exhale.
She stayed on the floor for a long time.
Eventually, the heat and steam became too much, and she pushed herself up with trembling effort, using the basin edge for leverage. Her arm screamed as she shifted her weight, and a sharp sound tore from her throat before she could stop it.
Someone outside the wash-house paused.
Sable froze, breath held, her heart pounding too fast.
After a moment, the footsteps continued.
She sagged against the basin, panting, then reached for the water jug with her good hand and splashed her face. The cold shock helped clear her head just enough for her to think.
She couldn't hide this.
The pack might ignore bruises, but an arm that wouldn't lift would draw attention, and attention meant questions. Questions meant explanations, and explanations in Grimridge always twisted until they became accusations.
Sable needed a story.
She straightened slowly and practiced moving her shoulder in tiny increments, testing what she could endure. The joint felt loose, unstable, pain flaring violently with even the smallest movement, and she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out again.
Dislocated, maybe worse.
She rinsed the blood from her mouth and wiped her face clean as best she could, then tied her hair back more tightly, forcing herself into something resembling order. When she finally left the wash-house, she moved carefully, her arm pressed close to her body, her posture rigid.
The first person to notice was not a warrior.
It was Mara.
The older woman stood near the laundry tables, sorting cloth with methodical movements, and she looked up as Sable entered the room. Her eyes took in the way Sable moved, the pallor beneath the dirt, the unnatural stillness of her left arm, and something darkened in her expression.
"What happened," Mara said quietly.
It wasn't a question.
Sable stopped a few paces away. "I fell," she replied, the lie smooth because she had learned long ago how to shape them. "On the perimeter."
Mara's mouth tightened. "You don't fall like that," she said flatly.
Sable held her gaze, her jaw set. "I did."
For a long moment, Mara said nothing. Then she sighed through her nose and gestured toward a bench near the wall. "Sit," she ordered.
Sable obeyed, lowering herself carefully, every movement calculated to avoid jarring her shoulder. Mara crossed the room and crouched in front of her, her hands rough but practiced as she examined the injury without touching it directly.
"Can you move it," Mara asked.
Sable shook her head once.
Mara swore under her breath. "You need a healer."
"No," Sable said immediately, panic spiking beneath the pain.
Mara's eyes snapped up. "You need one whether you want it or not."
"They'll ask questions," Sable whispered, her voice breaking despite her efforts. "They'll make it worse."
Mara studied her face, then nodded once, sharp and resigned. "Then we do this quietly," she said. "But if that arm sets wrong, you won't be able to work. And if you can't work, Grimridge will chew you up."
Sable swallowed hard. "I know."
Mara stood and disappeared briefly into the storage area, returning with cloth strips and a small jar of oil. She moved efficiently, supporting Sable's arm with careful hands, guiding her through shallow breaths as she manipulated the joint back into place.
The pain was blinding and Sable screamed.
There was no stopping it this time, no controlling it, no swallowing it down. Her body arched as agony ripped through her, white-hot and consuming, and her vision went black at the edges.
When it eased enough for her to breathe again, she sagged forward, gasping, her whole body trembling.
Mara worked quickly, binding the shoulder tight, her movements firm and practiced. "You're lucky," she muttered. "Another inch and it would've torn clean."
Lucky? The word tasted bitter.
When Mara finished, she stepped back, her face hard. "You don't tell anyone," she said. "Not a word."
Sable nodded, tears streaking down her cheeks despite her efforts to stop them.
"Thank you."
Mara's eyes softened only slightly. "Don't thank me," she replied. "Be careful."
Sable laughed weakly, the sound cracked. "I was."
Mara didn't argue.
By the time Sable made it back to her room, exhaustion weighed on her like lead. She locked the door behind her and leaned against it for a moment, shaking, then dragged herself to the cot and collapsed onto it fully clothed.
The pain settled into a deep, relentless throb, spreading down her arm and across her back. She stared at the ceiling, breathing slowly, forcing her body to calm.
No one came. Not Adrian or Cassian. Not anyone.
The thought hurt more than she wanted to admit, not because she believed they owed her rescue, but because some small, dangerous part of her had hoped. Hope was insidious like that. It crept in quietly and waited until you were weakest.
Adrian hadn't known. Or he had, and he'd been too far away. Either way, the result was the same.
Sable turned onto her side carefully, curling inward to protect her injured arm. Her jaw tightened as understanding settled in, cold and clear.
Adrian could help sometimes. Cassian might act once. But neither of them lived in her world.
This was Grimridge's truth, stripped of illusion. The pack punished deviation, and it punished it hardest when no one important was watching.
Her eyes burned as tears slipped free again, silent this time.
She did not let herself sob. She lay there until the pain dulled enough that she could think beyond it, until her breathing slowed, until the initial shock passed and left behind something harder.
Resolve.
Sable stared at the door, at the repaired lock that had started all of this, and she felt something shift inside her. Not hope. Not faith.
But understanding.
She could not rely on rescue and she could not rely on protection.
If she survived Grimridge, it would be because she learned its rhythms, its blind spots, its limits, and she moved within them like a shadow no one could quite catch.
And when help came again, because she knew now that it would, she would take it with open eyes.
No illusions, gratitude, only calculation.
Because survival was not about being saved.
It was about what remained after no one came.