Rowan didn’t say anything the next day about the news from Silvercrest.
He didn’t have to. The pack felt it anyway.
There was a certain crackle along Nightfall’s edges, the way there always was when something big shifted in the wider world. Wolves talked in low voices near the fire, comparing notes on old ceremonies they’d seen, old mistakes they refused to repeat.
No one mentioned Aiden or Olivia by name. They didn’t need to. Enough of them had heard the messenger to know what “the southern announcement” meant.
Aria spent the morning with the pups, then escaped outside before her own skin got too tight.
By midday the sky had gone that flat, white color that promised more snow. The training ring was a churned mess of frozen earth and half‑melted drifts. A few wolves were already insid
