RIDING WITH THE BEAST
CHAPTER 64: THE EDGE OF THE MAP
When the delegates rode home at last, they carried more than maps and border agreements. They carried tales of how we had sat together in the circle, how no voice had been silenced no matter how small, how even those who had once served the old order had stood up to own their mistakes and work toward repair. Within a moon, messengers began arriving from places no one at Black Rock had ever heard named — from narrow mountain passes where snow stayed deep half the year, from reed‑choked river deltas where the water shifted with every tide, from forests so thick even the old keepers had never dared send patrols inside. Some came to ask for help against local bullies who had filled the power vacuum; some came to warn us that old enemies w
