The veil hummed low around the compound—steady, protective, and still, somehow, not quite peace. After the day they’d had, everyone wore quiet like a uniform. Wolves walked softer, checking entrances they already knew by heart. Somewhere in the tunnels, someone tried to fix a rattling grate and then stopped, as if the noise itself might draw the wrong ear.
Ravyn sat on the edge of the cot and watched her sons sleep. Dorian had flung one arm off the blanket like he’d conquered it and moved on. Alaric lay curled on his side with one small palm open against his chest, as if he were saving a space for the chalk he loved to press there. Two tiny rib cages rose and fell in different rhythms and still, somehow, matched.
“They deserve more than this,” she whispered, and the words tasted like a p
