They reached the border stream to find the loyalists already there, torches lit, gathered around the shallow cave mouth where the wellspring's presence pulsed faintly beneath the earth like something breathing.
Their leader was a wolf Ravenna recognized distantly — a household elder named Bram, whose family had lost three patrol members in a border skirmish two generations back, long before Ravenna had even been born. He stood at the front of the group with the particular calm certainty of a man who believed history itself owed him this moment.
"Emissary." He said the word with open contempt. "Come to defend the dragons' claim a second time?"
"I've come to stop you from starting a war neither side can survive," Ravenna said, sliding off her mount, Kael dismounting beside her a heartbeat
