Ashcroft stops broadcasting.
That’s how we know he’s done performing.
No more ideological speeches.
No more public awakenings.
No more martyr framing.
Just silence.
The kind that follows humiliation.
Morgan doesn’t like it.
“He’s recalibrating,” she says quietly.
“He’s cornered,” Kade replies.
“Cornered wolves bite,” Thorne mutters.
I don’t answer.
Because something inside me is already tightening.
Ashcroft is no longer trying to prove divine instability.
He’s trying to prove inevitability.
And when zealots fail publicly…
They escalate privately.
It happens at dawn.
Not in Blackthorn.
Not in the eastern territory.
Not near Northfall.
It happens in a small valley pack three territories south.
A pack that declared neutrality.
A pack that refused Covenant recruitment.
