The ruins had not been quiet since the Night Reavers fell.
Elinora stood on the dais as dawn broke, the Spine heavy in her hand. The cracks in the stone beneath her pulsed with faint light, in rhythm with her own heart. The valley’s hum had grown louder overnight, restless, as though it too had scented the blood spilled on its soil.
Her wolf’s voice was sharp. It doesn’t want them here. The Moonfangs. The Reavers. Anyone who is not us.
She glanced toward the ridge, where the Moonfang campfires smoldered low in the pale morning light. Two dozen riders, disciplined and watchful — allies by oath, but not by blood.
And blood was what the valley respected.
Riven returned from his patrol at the western wall, his cloak darkened by dew. “No movement near the grass,” he reported. “But the Reav
