The fortress came alive over the next several days.
What once had been little more than stone and silence began to breathe again—with footsteps echoing down long-forgotten halls, voices filling the courtyard, fires lighting hearths that hadn’t burned in centuries. Rogues who once lived day-to-day, always on the move, now pitched tents beneath ancient battlements or claimed empty chambers within the moss-covered keep.
But peace, as always, was short-lived.
Because with walls came questions.
And with questions… came challenges.
“Who put him in charge?”
The first time it was asked, it came from a scrappy wolf named Tyron—formerly of a shattered southern pack, broad-shouldered and bitter. He’d fought hard in the battle against the hunters. And like many others, he hadn’t objected when Re
