The silence after the Void halts is heavier than the screaming had been.
It is not a peaceful silence. It is the brittle, exhausted quiet of a battlefield where the enemy has merely paused to reload.
Kade shifts his weight, his human arms trembling as he lifts me from the frost-covered grass of the courtyard. Through the merge, I feel his physical exhaustion as a deep, aching burn in my own muscles, but beneath it lies a bedrock of stubborn, unyielding relief. We are alive. The pack is alive.
"Margot," Kade rasps, his voice sounding like gravel grinding together. "Triage. Now."
The pack’s head healer is already moving. She and a team of medics are weaving through the concentric circles of the lattice, checking pulses, administering restorative tinctures, and gently rousing the wolves w
