LOGINChapter 19The council chamber erupted into relieved noise the moment the messenger's reply was read aloud.“Commander Nightfall accepts.”Halvard, the eldest council member, read the words twice, as though he still couldn't quite believe them. The gray-muzzled wolf had served three Alphas before Kane and had seen enough wars to know how rarely desperate negotiations ended this easily.“Five years we've thrown resources at these raids with nothing to show for it,” he said. “And she agrees in a single sentence.”“A single sentence and an unfamiliar seal,” another elder pointed out, taking the parchment from him. “No price. No timeline. Just a crescent moon and four words.”“She'll specify her terms when she arrives,” Halvard said. “A commander doesn't waste ink explaining herself to people she hasn't decided to trust.”Kane sat at the head of the table through the entire exchange, saying little.His mind kept circling the same possibility.Three years of chasing rumors. Two more years
Chapter 17The triplets turned five on a clear autumn morning, and Elena marked the day with a quiet pride she couldn't quite hide.Inside the strategy tent, Ronan reset his carved wooden board.He had just beaten a veteran rogue strategist nearly thirty years his senior in eleven moves.And judging by his expression, he wasn't satisfied."You beat him fair, sweetheart," Elena said, smoothing his hair as Rune leaned against her side. "You don't need to prove it twice.""I want to see if I can do it in nine."Ronan's eyes stayed fixed on the board.Elena smiled."Of course you do."Across the training yard, Kai was working through combat drills with boys twice his size.He was fast.Too fast, sometimes.He threw himself into every movement with the kind of instinct that made Sera keep a close eye on him, even when he was clearly ahead of his training partners."He's terrifyingly good," Sera said, leaning against the fence beside Elena.She watched Kai duck beneath a larger boy's swing
Chapter 17The triplets turned five on a clear autumn morning, and Elena marked the day with a quiet pride she couldn't quite hide.Inside the strategy tent, Ronan reset his carved wooden board.He had just beaten a veteran rogue strategist nearly thirty years his senior in eleven moves.And judging by his expression, he wasn't satisfied."You beat him fair, sweetheart," Elena said, smoothing his hair as Rune leaned against her side. "You don't need to prove it twice.""I want to see if I can do it in nine."Ronan's eyes stayed fixed on the board.Elena smiled."Of course you do."Across the training yard, Kai was working through combat drills with boys twice his size.He was fast.Too fast, sometimes.He threw himself into every movement with the kind of instinct that made Sera keep a close eye on him, even when he was clearly ahead of his training partners."He's terrifyingly good," Sera said, leaning against the fence beside Elena.She watched Kai duck beneath a larger boy's swing
Chapter 16Kane had become very good at pretending.To the pack council, he was the stoic Alpha holding Silvercrest together through border raids, shrinking resources, and growing unrest.To his pack, he was still the same ruler they had always known—the man who stood at the front when trouble came and never showed how badly it was wearing him down.Only Kane knew what life inside the pack house had become.Every night under the same roof as Priscilla meant watching her. Listening to what she said. Noticing where she went. Waiting for the mistake that would finally expose whoever was behind her.He had spent years doing it.And still, he had found nothing he could use.He had also spent years searching for Elena.Covert scouts had crossed rogue territory under false names. Kane had paid black-market informants for rumors that led nowhere. More than once, someone claimed to have seen a woman traveling with three silver-eyed children.Every trail ended in silence.Rogue territory was en
Chapter 15It took three grueling weeks to track down the mole.Elena had expected it to be a recent recruit, someone whose loyalty to the coalition hadn't been tested by years of life in rogue territory.She was wrong.When Garrick laid out the evidence inside his private tent, the betrayal came from someone who had been here long before Elena ever crossed the border.Perrin.A veteran scout.Someone Garrick had trusted for years."Eight months of leaked patrol schedules," Garrick said grimly, sliding a ledger across the war table. "Intercepted supply routes. Compromised borders. Every trail we followed eventually led back to him."Elena looked down at the pages.Names. Routes. Dates. Patrol rotations.Too much information.Too many opportunities for someone to get hurt."Bring him in," she said quietly. "No one else needs to know yet."They seized Perrin at dusk.He didn't resist.He simply lowered his head and allowed Garrick's guards to escort him into the interrogation tent, look
Chapter 14By the time the triplets turned two, the entire camp could tell them apart from fifty yards away.Ronan was the quiet one.He watched everything. He rarely rushed into anything without first studying it, and even at two, he had a habit of sitting beside the older warriors while they played board games, quietly studying their moves.More than once, he'd surprised veteran commanders by predicting their next move.Kai was the opposite.He was always moving.He was the fastest toddler in the settlement, constantly racing between tents and climbing anything he could reach. But whenever Ronan or Rune was nearby, Kai became watchful. If someone raised their voice at either of them, he was usually the first to react, planting himself between them with a tiny growl that was far more serious than his size suggested.Then there was Rune.Rune was quiet in a way that made even hardened mercenaries pay attention.She didn't play like the other children.Sometimes, she'd simply stop in t







