We were three miles out when Kael said Aldric would have the gates sealed.
"He knows we're coming," he said. Not a guess. A read. He knew how his father thought the way you know the floorboards that creak in a house you grew up in. "He'll pull the inner guard back, post the outer ring, and let the pack think they're protected. Then he'll wait."
"For what?" Jax asked.
"For us to make the first visible move. So he can frame it."
I kept walking. The road north was dirt and old gravel, the kind that had been there since before any of the packs claimed the territory around it. Trees pressed in on both sides, not Old Growth, just regular forest, but in the gray morning light they looked heavier than they were.
"He doesn't have the Council anymore," I said.
"He doesn't need it. He has the p
