Chapter 16

Chapter 16 – The Rogue’s Gambit

The night air tasted of iron and ash, sharp and sour, a memory of blood left to crust in the hollows of the earth. Lucien stood at the ragged border of Shadow Fang territory like a king without a crown, crimson eyes like coals buried beneath bone. The moon hung broken and thin above the trees, a pale scythe that barely cut the dark. Around him his rogues crouched low, a tangle of bodies hunched against the cold: lean, scarred, and hungry. They breathed in synchronized rasps that sounded more like the exhalations of predators than men; Lucien fed that hunger with every word.

“Kael weakens,” he said, voice low and precise as a blade. The words slipped into the night and settled like frost. “His wolves look to him and see hesitation. They see him protecting a human instead of sharpening his claws. The cracks in his rule are showing. Tonight, we widen them.”

A ripple of snarls answered, eager and malevolent. The rogues had been tempered by exile and blood;