Chapter 64
The days after the ledger came apart were a slow-burning fever. News spread like a wildfire in dry grass—names, meetings, guilty faces—and the compound felt like it was on a constant tightrope. Some nights the torches at the border flickered like eyes; some days the training yard filled with the scent of steel and sweat as the entire pack drilled. We moved from suspicion to action, from grief to strategy, and through it all, the ledger lay at the center of everything like a rotten tooth that had to be pulled. Morning came hard and gray. The fog in the trees made the world look washed out; even the oaks seemed to hold their breath, as if they too were waiting to see what this battle would cost us. I sat on the porch of the main hall with a mug of something hot that tasted faintly of herbs.
- Writer
