CHAPTER 31:
Three days passed in a blur of motion. The camp grew beyond the yard, spilling out into the surrounding fields, rows of tents rising like mushrooms after rain. Smoke curled from a hundred fires at dawn, and the air hummed with voices, hammer strikes, and the low, restless growl of wolves patrolling the outer perimeter. We were no longer just one house, one family—we were a settlement, a movement, a force the Council could not simply sweep aside. But with every new arrival came new risk, new strain, new questions no one had answers for.
I stood at the edge of the camp that morning, watching a group of children chase each other between the tents, their laughter cutting through the quiet murmur of planning. They should not be here. No one should be here. But they had come anyway
