Change rarely arrived with thunder.
Sometimes it came disguised as calm.
The kind of calm that made Lila uneasy.
The river had settled back into its banks. Patrol rotations flowed smoothly. Trade caravans moved in and out of the southern route without tension. Even the eastern ridge pack had begun sending small gifts — cured hides, rare herbs, a carved wooden hawk that now sat on the council table.
Everything was… working.
Which was exactly why Lila felt the shift before anyone said it aloud.
The pack wasn’t just surviving.
It was preparing to outgrow its training wheels.
Alden felt it too.
He stood at the edge of the training field at dawn, watching younger wolves move through drills Rowan had designed. They weren’t clumsy anymore. Their footing was confident, their formations ti
