Octavia's Point of View
The lecture hall smells faintly of chalk and old wood, the kind of scent that clings no matter how many times the windows are opened. I sit midway down the tiered rows, my notebook open in front of me, my pen poised, though my mind keeps drifting.
It is history class...again. The teacher, Professor Halberg, is pacing slowly across the front of the hall, his voice low and deliberate as he sketches a map on the board with sure strokes of white chalk.
“…and while the alliance of the five packs has held for more than a century, it has never been without strain,” he says, circling the jagged borderlines drawn between territories. “Trust between packs is earned, and even then, it can be lost with a single betrayal. That is why our defense systems, and our commitment to
