The outpost did not sleep after the breach.
Torches burned through the night. Wolves moved in tight, deliberate paths, eyes sharp, hands never far from steel. The silence from beyond the wall had been replaced by something worse. Certainty.
They were no longer guessing.
Lyra stood in the command room long after the maps had been re-pinned and the damage assessed. The carved words still stared back at her from the wall.
Choose faster.
She did not allow anyone to erase them.
Not yet.
Tyler leaned against the opposite table, arms folded, jaw tight. He had taken a cut along his ribs during the chase. Shallow. Clean. Already bound. He hadn’t mentioned it.
She had noticed anyway.
“They wanted you shaken,” Tyler said quietly. “Not dead.”
“Yes,” Lyra replied. “And not persuaded. Pressure
