POV Dante
The day after Silas’s forces retreated was tense, a temporary calm that felt more like the eye of a storm than the end of it. Every wolf in Talon Pack knew that Silas was regrouping, that he’d be back. Elara and I spent the morning going over plans with Osric and the council, reinforcing the border defenses, arranging patrol rotations, and preparing the pack for what we knew would be the final, decisive clash.
Elara was carrying the weight of it all, her every decision burdened by the lives it would affect, but she wore that weight with a strength that left me both proud and worried. I could see the exhaustion beneath her determination, the subtle signs of strain that only someone close to her might notice. But even as the weight pressed down on her, she stood tall, unwavering.
