ALEXANDER
Lira promised she’d be ready in a few days. She kept her word.
We leave before the sun clears the ridge. Raffa rides ahead with two scouts folded into his shadow. Enzo walks beside me, his hand never far from the hilt at his hip. Lira moves quietly at the center of our column, clutching a small satchel of bones and jars. Behind us march six of our best soldiers, men and women who have followed me through winters and strikes and fights. They are quiet. Their faces are set like flint.
We do not speak of Emmaline. Saying her name would change the way we move. It would make the air hot and loud. So we keep to signs, to short gestures. I let the wolf in me focus on the land: the smell of crushed pine, the wet grit of the trail, the sound of distant rockfall. My head is a map.
Lir
