Chapter 2: The Bone-Carved Necklace
The chains rattled as she stirred.
Light crept through the narrow infirmary window, casting golden slashes across frost-covered stone. The girl’s eyes opened slowly—gray-gold, unfocused at first. Then clear. Alert.
She tried to sit.
“Don’t,” a voice said curtly.
Alvin stood at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, pendant clutched in one fist. Four officers flanked the room like statues, hands resting on sword hilts.
Her gaze drifted down to the cuffs.
“Silver,” Alvin said flatly. “Binds wolves. Burns if you shift.”
She said nothing.
He took a step forward. “Speak your name.”
No response.
“You were found in a rebel den. Covered in blood. Holding this—” He raised the bone-carved pendant between two fingers. “It belonged to my sister. Who’s been dead for ten years.”
Still nothing.
“Do you have any idea what this means?”
She looked at the pendant. Her lips parted, barely, as if to whisper something. But only breath came.
Alvin’s eyes narrowed. “You won’t play mute forever.”
“She might be cursed,” muttered Captain Jern beside him.
“Or trained,” said another officer. “Some of the old Silver Court were taught to resist mind probes.”
Alvin's gaze flicked to the girl. “You recognize this?” He moved the pendant closer, just inches from her face.
Her eyes softened.
She closed them.
Like she was praying.
Like it hurt to look.
Anger boiled over. “Enough games.”
He turned to the guards. “Take her below. Dungeon level. Isolate her. I’ll interrogate her personally. Daily.”
“Yes, Commander.”
As the guards moved in, one of them hesitated. “She’s barely strong enough to stand.”
“Then drag her.”
The girl didn’t resist as they lifted her.
Alvin followed as they descended the spiral stone steps. Each clang of her shackles echoed in his skull.
She was hiding something. And it wasn’t just the pendant.
He hated how familiar her silence felt. How her eyes reminded him of forgotten kindness.
He hated how it made him hesitate.
\*\*
The cell door slammed shut.
The girl sat curled in the far corner, wrapped in shadow.
Alvin watched her from the corridor, arms behind his back, heart pacing too fast.
Behind him, Jern cleared his throat. “With respect, Commander, some of the men are asking why she’s still alive.”
“She’s a prisoner. Not a corpse. Yet.”
“She’s silverborn.”
“I know.”
“Then—”
“Dismissed.”
Jern hesitated, then saluted and left.
Alvin waited until the corridor was empty.
Then he stepped closer to the bars.
She looked up.
“You’re not going to talk,” he said quietly, “are you?”
No reply.
“But you’re not mute. I saw it. Heard it.”
Still nothing.
He exhaled sharply. “You sang the lullaby. The same one my sister used to hum. How?”
Silence.
“She died in a fire. A fire set by your kind.”
The girl flinched. Barely—but enough.
He stepped closer. “Is that it? Guilt?”
Her voice came at last. Soft. Broken.
“I remember her.”
Alvin froze.
“What did you say?”
The girl’s eyes stayed on the floor. “She gave me food once. In the hills. Before everything burned.”
“That’s impossible.”
“She had a braid. Little blue ribbon. She laughed like windchimes.”
His breath hitched.
That memory… no one knew that. Not even his men.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
She lifted her eyes to him. “No one you’d believe.”
“You were in that house.”
“I was in the woods.”
“You were with the rebels.”
“I was running.”
He shook his head. “Lies.”
“I kept the pendant,” she whispered. “Because I thought he’d want it someday.”
“He?”
“The boy I saved.”
Silence stretched.
Alvin gripped the bars so tightly his knuckles cracked.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why didn’t you say something before?”
“I didn’t think you’d remember me.”
“I don’t,” he snapped.
“But I remember you.”
She curled up again, turning her face away.
Alvin stood there a long time.
The pendant felt heavy now—too heavy for bone.
\*\*
That night, sleep refused him.
He paced the war room alone, firelight throwing strange shapes across the walls.
Was it possible?
Had she been there? Had she…?
He slammed a fist into the table.
No. She was a liar. A silverblood. A trickster.
And yet—
That lullaby. That voice. That damn necklace.
\*\*
He returned to the dungeon past midnight.
The guards were gone. He had dismissed them earlier.
She was awake, sitting quietly, her back to the wall.
“Do you dream?” he asked.
She didn’t move.
“Because I do. About that night. About the fire. The screams.”
He stepped closer.
“Do you know what it’s like to wake up every night thinking you heard your sister calling?”
Still no reply.
He drew closer to the bars.
“And then one day… to see her necklace in the hands of a stranger?”
“I didn’t steal it,” she said softly.
“You expect me to believe that?”
She looked up. “I gave it to you.”
His breath caught.
“What?”
“You were small. Bleeding. Hiding under the floorboards. I heard you crying.”
His stomach dropped.
“You reached out,” she continued, “so I gave you the pendant. To make you stop shaking.”
“No,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“You’re not her. She died.”
“No,” she said. “I did.”
And for the first time, he saw it—
The way her shoulders curved like she carried years of grief. The way her voice cracked like old ice. The way her eyes shimmered not with power—but pain.
He said nothing.
She laid her head against the stone.
“I don’t care if you kill me,” she murmured. “But I never betrayed her. Or you.”
Alvin stepped back.
The silence pressed in.
He turned and left without another word, pendant swinging at his side.
It felt heavier now than ever before.