THE ANCIENT PACT
The c***k in the northern ridge did not widen the next morning.
It did not need to.
Everyone had heard it.
Everyone had felt it.
The valley moved differently now—measured, alert, listening. Patrols avoided the ridge unless ordered. The younger wolves stayed closer to the central grounds. Even the forest seemed restrained, as if the trees themselves were bracing.
Elara had not removed the circlet in three days.
It no longer felt like metal.
It felt like a pulse.
A slow, cold rhythm beneath her skin.
She stood in the archive chamber beneath the council hall, dust and ancient parchment thick in the air. The chamber had not been opened in years. It had not needed to be.
Until now.
Kael descended the stone steps behind her, carrying a torch. The flame threw shifting
