Sebastian
We returned under cover of darkness.
Wolves limped through Yormsborg’s gates, bloodied, smoke-streaked, and silent. No one cheered our return. There was no glory in ambush—only ash and the cold sting of failure.
We had shifted back to our human forms as we strutted back into the Kingdom. This wasn’t what we had planned for.
But we hadn’t returned empty-handed.
The scroll.
Clutched tightly in my belt pouch, its edges were singed but intact. We’d pried it from the fingers of a fallen traitor during the retreat, and though we’d been burned, this was something. Proof. Evidence. A thread to follow.
The gates shut behind us with a heavy clang, and I exhaled for the first time in what felt like hours.
“Take the wounded to the healers,” I ordered, my voice raw. “And someone tell
