Aria’s POV
We called the pack to the quarry at dusk.
Not in the hall. In the open, where the ridge could hear. Where the Warden could hear.
Torches lined the edge of the old pit, their light catching on the ward-stone we’d used for the first node. Coren had cleared it, recarved the lines, made it clean again.
The damper sat beside it, inert now. It didn’t need to work anymore.
The pack gathered quiet. Marsh line, Black Ridge wolves, even a few of the old Hold families who’d come back after the truce. No one was laughing. No one was arguing. They’d heard the story in the hall. Now they wanted to see if it was real.
Ridah stood to my right. Forsaken to my left. Lyra and Tav at the edge of the circle, watching the dark beyond the torches. Coren knelt at the ward-stone, hands stead
