เข้าสู่ระบบAlaric’s PoVI wake up because she’s watching me.Not guard duty. Not a threat at the tent flap. Hazel. She thinks I’m still asleep. I’m not. Haven’t been for ten minutes. I was too busy memorizing the way dawn hits her face when she thinks I can’t see.“Staring,” I say. My voice is deep. Sleep-soft. I only let it get like that for her.“Admiring,” she shoots back. That’s new. That’s ours. I open my eyes. She’s propped on her elbow. Hair wild. Moonvine twisted. The cut on her ribs is just visible under the furs. My bandage. My hands did that. Cleaned it. Bandaged it. Kept her.“Ribs?” I ask. Have to. The warlord in me needs the status. The mate in me needs to know she’s not hurting.“Your doing,” she says. “So they’re fine.”I roll. Trap her under me before I can stop myself. Need to feel her breathe. Need to feel her here. She doesn’t flinch. Never does. Not with me. I bend. Press my mouth to the bandage. To the skin I almost lost. “Good.”Syra’s pot bangs outside. Late. “Up!
Hazel’s PoVThe next morning starts with his hand , warm on my ribs. Right over the cut he cleaned last night. Thumb moving back and forth. Like he’s checking I’m still real.I’m awake before him. That never happens. Usually he’s up first, sword in hand, scanning for threats before the sun’s even brave enough to show. But today the tent is light and quiet and he’s still. His face is softer asleep. No Alpha. No war. Just Alaric. I let myself look. The scar on his eyebrow from the gate fight three years ago. The new one on his jaw from yesterday. The way his lashes are too long for a man who kills for a living.“Staring,” he mumbles. Doesn’t open his eyes. But his mouth twitches.“Admiring,” I correct him. He finally looks. Gray eyes, hazy with sleep. With peace. That’s new too. “Dangerous habit.”“Worth it,” I say. Steal his line from Rook.He rolls, and suddenly I’m under him. Wrapped in his arms, his weight. Not trapping. Holding. “Ribs?” he asks. All serious now as he checks my
Hazel’s PoV Early in the morning the next day, Syra has to bang a pot with a spoon to get the forty-three children out of their tents. “Up! Unless you want Rook to eat everything!” Rook is already in the circle with a bowl bigger than his face. “Worth it,” he says when Miri shoves him. Mara learns letters. She sits on a log outside the healer’s wing. Her wrists are still wrapped in clean cloth. The white rings from three years of collars haven’t faded. Kip is beside her with Pike’s slate. “This is M,” Kip says. He draws it slow in the dirt. “For Mara. And for Mom.” Mara picks up a stick. Her hand shakes. She copies him. The M wobbles. “And this is K,” Kip says. “For Kip. And for ‘I kept my promise.’” Mara makes the K. Kip puts his hand over hers to steady it. “You learned,” she whispers. “Without me.” “Hazel taught me,” Kip says. “But I saved books for you.” I leave before they see me wipe my eyes. Sara meets the pack. Lia does the talking. She hasn’t let
Hazel’s POVWe train for two days. Not warriors. Kids. “You don’t have to,” I tell them. We’re in the old armory. Lina’s School now. Forty three sets of eyes. Some scared. Some angry. All listening. “Fighting is a choice. Healing is a choice. Running is a choice. You choose.”Rook raises his hand first. “I fight. Like Dad.” He means Cleric. He started calling him that yesterday. “Me too,” Miri says. “For Eda.”“Me,” Eda says. “For Miri.”Pike stands. “For the Last War. So no more kids get sold.”Twelve in total. Rook, Miri, Eda, Galen, Tobin, Bran, Dev, Jori, and four others. All over ten. All chose it. “Then we train,” Kael says. He’s limping less now. “Not to kill. To survive. To protect. To come home.”The other thirty one learn healing. Bandages. Moonvine. Splints. “You keep them alive,” I tell Kip, who is six and won’t fight but won’t leave Rook’s side either. “That’s how you win wars.”Kip nods. “Like you saved me.”Nina watches from the doorway. Baby Lina strapped to her ch
Hazel’s POVWe bury them at dawn. Five graves. Three from Winter Tooth. Two from Silver Creek. Borin can’t stand. His Beta, Harrick, speaks for him. “They died for the Pact,” Harrick says. “Not for a pack. For an idea. That kids aren’t property.”“They’ll be remembered,” Syra says. Her voice breaks on the last word. The two Silver Creek dead were her cousins. “In Lina’s School. In every pup who grows up free.”The forty three are quiet. Watching. Learning what death looks like when it’s not in a cell. Rook holds Tala’s hand. Miri holds Eda’s. Pike holds Kip’s. Finn, who is five, holds mine. “Are they with the Moon now?” Finn whispers. “Yes,” I say. “She watches all of us.”We don’t plant moonvine. Not yet. We plant steel. Sword hilts, driven into the earth at each head. “So Fen knows,” Alaric says. “This is what it costs.”Nina’s water breaks at noon. She’s in the infirmary. Syra was checking her bandages from where Fen’s knife cut her arm. Shallow, but deep enough to need stitc
Hazel’s POV“HE’S OUT.”The paper shakes in my hand .“Fen,” Kael says. “Tormund’s brother. Beta of High Pine before Syra took it. He escaped. Two hours ago. Killed three guards with his bare hands.”The forty three are sleeping. Spread across the pack house, the infirmary, the new barracks we built. Safe. For now.“How?” Alaric asks. His voice is quiet. That’s worse than yelling. “He was in the deep cells. Iron chains. Six guards.”“He had help,” the scout says. “From outside. Someone opened the door. Someone who knew the rotation.”Tormund smiles from his cell when we tell him. Teeth bloody from biting his gag off. “You think you won?” he says. “You struck one law. My brother will write ten more. In your blood.”I don’t answer him. I don’t have to. “Double the watch,” Alaric orders. “On the kids. On Nina. On the gates. No one sleeps alone tonight.”Dawn. Luna ceremony day.We planned it for weeks. Before Tormund. Before Fen. Before the message saying “HE’S OUT.” “We still do it,”







