Three months had passed since the barrier was strengthened.
Three months of peace, of healing, of building. The camp that had once been a collection of tents and makeshift shelters had transformed into something more. Something permanent. Cabins lined the central square, their wooden walls sturdy and warm, smoke rising from stone chimneys. Gardens bloomed where battlements once stood, vegetables and herbs and flowers growing in neat rows. Children played in fields that had known only blood and fear, their laughter filling the air with a sound that had been absent for far too long.
Lena walked through it each morning, marveling at what they had created. She passed the training grounds where young wolves practiced their forms. She passed the healing house where Celeste tended to the sick a
