Gaelan had learned to recognise the silence that followed bad news. His father's death. The border skirmish that took out three of Ironpeak's best fighters. The elder's announcement that the drought would last another season. The death of their former female alpha.
It was not the silence of peace. It was the silence of something held very still so it would not break.
Varek had been wearing that silence since he came back from his travels.
Gaelan sat at his table in the late hours, the settlement outside dark and frost-edged, and turned it over. He was a careful man by nature, it was half of what made him useful as Beta. The other half was that he was honest about what he saw, even when honesty was inconvenient.
What he saw: Varek Navar, who had led Ironpeak through harder seasons with
