(Isla)
I was crossing the training yard when I heard it.
Not directed at me. That was the thing about careless words, they rarely were. He was talking to another warrior, someone I didn't know well, and they were standing near the far side of the yard and I was passing through on my way back from the eastern path where I'd been walking since after breakfast.
I heard my name and then I heard the word after it.
Wolfless.
Said the way people said things they considered simple facts. Not cruelly, not the way Brent had said it, not with the weight Maren had put behind it when she wanted it to land somewhere specific. Just casually. The way you might mention the weather or the state of the fence line. A descriptor attached to a person without any particular care for whether the person could
