The southern sky was warmer, but Katherine felt no heat.
She crouched in the shadow of an abandoned grain silo, eyes locked on the village below—her village. Graywood Hollow.
Once filled with cobblestone paths and laughter.
Now... it was a fortress.
Barricades lined the streets. Watchtowers loomed over houses. Crimson-armored guards—mercenaries—patrolled where pups once played tag.
The granary she'd grown up climbing on had been gutted and reinforced with steel. Stenciled on the crates stacked inside: *Wolfsbane Ammunition Division.*
“It's not a village anymore," whispered Talin, her scout. “It's a war factory."
Katherine nodded, jaw tight. “We move at dusk."
---
Under cover of fading sunlight, her team slipped inside the munitions hub through a collapsed well.
In the vault benea
