The ridge gave them half a day’s grace. No more. The dust of the broken wagons still clung to their boots when the wind shifted and carried the Spire’s sour song back into their teeth.
Lena walked with her crowns low, fire and storm and bone barely whispering above her head. The raven feather in her coat pressed sharp against her ribs, as though the Walker had left a spy stitched into her seams. She touched it once through the cloth. It pulsed cold.
---
The Council in the Shadows
At dusk, Ysra halted them by a stream bed gone mostly dry. Her spear dug into the clay. “We camp here. Scouts say the valley’s watching again.”
“Watching how?” Dominic asked, crouching to check the current that barely licked over stones.
“Too quiet,” Ysra said simply. “Knives don’t leave silence unless they’
