The horn sounded again.
This time it was closer.
I stood in the middle of the courtyard with Kael's forehead still warm against mine, and I felt every muscle in his body shift. Not tense he was already tense. Something deeper than that. The way a wolf shifts when it hears a sound that means winter.
He stepped back from me.
He turned toward the south wall.
"Oryn."
"Already counting, my king." The white-haired Lycan was back on the wall, hand shading his eyes against the late sun. He was quiet for a moment, and the courtyard was quiet with him.
Then he said, "Forty."
The word fell into the sand like a stone into still water.
"Forty?" Vael's voice was sharp. She had come down off her own wall position. She was wiping her knives on a piece of cloth she had pulled from inside her coat.
