ログインMira's POV
Twelve of us against forty rogues, and the math was never going to work in our favor.
I knew that walking in. I counted anyway, out of habit, the way I count everything before a fight, and the number didn't improve no matter how many times I ran it. We hit the eastern approach fast, loud, exactly the kind of reckless that draws every eye in the wrong direction, and for the first te
Mira's POVTwelve of us against forty rogues, and the math was never going to work in our favor.I knew that walking in. I counted anyway, out of habit, the way I count everything before a fight, and the number didn't improve no matter how many times I ran it. We hit the eastern approach fast, loud, exactly the kind of reckless that draws every eye in the wrong direction, and for the first ten minutes it worked beautifully. Rogues peeled off their perimeter positions in twos and threes, chasing the noise we made, exactly as planned.Then the numbers caught up with the plan, the way numbers always do eventually."Hold the line!" I don't know how many times I've shouted that particular command in my life, but tonight it comes out rawer than usual, edged with something I don't have time to name.
Kael's POVThe horn hasn't finished echoing before the first ward cracks under Elara's charge.I see it happen from twenty yards back, a wall of silver-white light rippling like water struck by a stone, and for one suspended second I think it might hold. Then it doesn't. Elara's wolves pour through the gap howling, Elara herself at the front in human form, silver-streaked hair whipping loose from whatever knot she tied it in before this started, twin blades flashing in each hand like she's done this a hundred times before and doesn't intend to stop now."Move!" I shout it more to myself than anyone else, because my legs are already carrying me forward before my mind catches up, the loyal core of Silverclaw falling into formation around me without needing the order twice.The outer perimeter c
Nyra's POVThe chanting starts low, and my whole body goes cold before I even understand the words.They've moved me. Stripped away whatever scraps of privacy the last few days afforded me and laid me flat across the center altar stone, arms bound wide, wrists lashed to iron rings I never noticed carved into the rock until tonight. Above me, the sky has gone the particular dark red that comes before a moon decides to rise, bruised and heavy, waiting.Dorian stands at my head, arms raised, voice pitched low and rhythmic, syllables in a language I don't recognize but feel anyway, deep in the marrow, like the words themselves know exactly where to press to make me flinch.I don't flinch.The chains at my wrists hum louder with every syllable he speak
Kael's POVEvery plan we built dies the moment the scout finishes his sentence."Tonight," I repeat, like saying the word again will change its shape, will somehow buy back the day we just lost. "He's moved it up a full day."The scout nods, still catching his breath, mud drying dark across his knuckles from wherever he crawled through to reach us this fast. Behind him, the tent flap hangs open, letting in cold night air and the distant sound of a camp that thinks it still has until tomorrow to finish preparing.It doesn't.Mira's already moving, sweeping the map off the table and onto the ground, charcoal marks smearing under her boot as she crouches to spread a second sheet, faster, rougher, sketching new lines with the particular speed of someo
Nyra's POVThree nights. That's all I have left to hold onto, and I'm not letting go of them without a fight.The cold's worse now, deeper, the kind that settles into bone and stays there no matter how I shift against the altar stone trying to find warmth that doesn't exist. My wrists have gone past aching into something closer to numb, and Senna's voice has thinned to almost nothing, a whisper I have to strain to hear even when I'm not straining against anything else.I close my eyes and go back there anyway. To the ruins. To three days trapped together with nothing but ancient stone and the weight of everything unsaid finally breaking open between us.I remember his hand.Flat against my sternum, careful, like he thought I might shatter if he pr
Dorian's POVPatience built my career. Impatience will finish it, if I let the wrong men keep talking.I stand at the edge of the ruins, watching torches gutter along the perimeter, watching wolves I've paid or threatened or persuaded pace their assigned posts with the particular restlessness of soldiers who sense something shifting they haven't been told about yet.They're right to sense it. Something has shifted. My scouts brought word an hour ago, and I've spent every minute since deciding what to do with it.Kael Draven has built an army in days that should have taken him months.I admire it, in the way I admire any well-executed maneuver, even one aimed at ending everything I've spent years constructing. Nine packs. Elara of Nightfall, appare







