The next day dawned gray over Naidaska, the kind of morning where the sun barely pierced through the cloud-thick sky. The city stirred early, its people moving like ants between market stalls, taverns, and the fortress gates. Smoke curled from chimneys, carrying the smell of charred meat and steel oil. The usual restlessness of Naidaska hummed in the air, but beneath it was something else, expectation. As if the entire city knew that silence was only the space between two thunderclaps.
Damon stood in the training yard, already drilling his men before the frost had thawed. His commands cracked the cold air like whips, his voice firm, merciless. Wolves panted and strained, their muscles quivering, their bodies pushed to limits they hadn’t known before the war. Damon’s eyes, sharp as blades,
