Seraphine's POV
The road had been long, and by evening everyone was spent. The creak of the carriage still echoed in my ears; the horses’ nostrils steamed white in the cold, and the soldiers’ faces were drawn with the strain of the day. The air tasted unfamiliar, salted with scents that had set the wolf inside me restless hours ago. No one needed to name the danger—we all felt it: the strays were somewhere close.
“We make camp,” Cassian announced, his voice snapping across the clearing like a twig cracking underfoot.
The order shifted every man into motion. What looked like chaos one moment—bodies moving, ropes flung, poles driven into the earth—became in the next a seamless, disciplined machine. Two soldiers paced the perimeter in steady arcs; others gathered kindling and coaxed sparks
