Morning came with noise.
Not the bad kind. Just one hundred and one people waking up in a space built for twenty eight.
---
I was already awake before most of them.
Old habit. In Ashveil I was always up before the village because early morning was the only time nobody looked at me sideways or moved out of my path.
Some habits stick even when the reason for them is gone.
---
Aldric was up too. Standing at the entrance looking out at the gray morning with a cup of something hot in his hands.
He heard me coming and did not turn around.
"Sleep well?" he asked.
"Well enough," I said. "You?"
"I never sleep well the night before a move," he said. "Too many things to remember."
---
I stood beside him and looked out at the trees.
Cold morning. Still. The kind of quiet that felt temporary.
"Are your people alright with this?" I asked. "Really. Not just what they told you last night."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Three of them are nervous," he said. "Two more are excited in a way that worries me more than the nervous ones."
"Why does excited worry you?" I asked.
"Excited people take risks," he said. "Nervous people are careful."
---
That was a useful way to think about it.
"Which three are nervous?" I asked.
He glanced at me sideways.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because I want to talk to them before we move," I said. "Not to convince them. Just to listen."
---
He looked at me for a moment.
"Most leaders want to know who the excited ones are," he said. "So they can use them."
"I know who the excited ones are already," I said. "They are easy to spot."
"And the nervous ones?" he said.
"The nervous ones are paying attention," I said. "I want to know what they are seeing that is making them nervous."
---
Aldric was quiet for a second.
Then he told me the three names.
---
I found them before breakfast was finished.
A woman named Sera who had two small children and was quietly terrified of moving them further from any kind of settlement.
An older man named Cobb who had built Aldric's outpost with his own hands and was grieving leaving it.
And a young man named Fenn who had been caught once before by pure blood soldiers and still had the marks from it.
---
I did not give any of them speeches.
I sat with Sera while her children ate and asked her what she needed to feel safer moving. She said she needed to know her children would be with her at all times and not separated into another group.
I told her that was not a problem.
She nodded and her shoulders came down slightly.
---
I found Cobb loading supplies and helped him carry without saying anything for a few minutes.
Then I said. "You built something real here."
"Yes," he said.
"The Hollow is older and stronger," I said. "Built into rock. It has been standing for three hundred years."
He thought about that while we carried.
"I could build something there," he said. More to himself than to me.
"We are going to need people who know how to build," I said.
He looked at me.
Then he picked up another crate.
---
Fenn was the hardest.
He was sitting alone sharpening a blade he probably did not need to sharpen. His eyes kept going to the tree line.
I sat down nearby and said nothing for a moment.
"You do not have to come," I said finally.
He looked at me sharply.
"What?" he said.
"If you want to stay," I said. "I will not think less of you. What you went through gives you the right to choose."
---
He stared at me.
"Everyone else is going," he said.
"That does not mean you have to," I said.
He was quiet for a long time.
"If I stay alone out here I am dead inside a month," he said.
"Probably," I said honestly.
"So it is not really a choice," he said.
"It is still a choice," I said. "Just one with a clear answer."
---
He almost laughed.
Not quite. But almost.
"Fine," he said. "I am coming."
He stood up and put the blade away.
"But if we walk into something bad," he said. "I am going to be very unhappy about it."
"That is fair," I said.
---
I went back to find Riven.
He was with Dane watching Zev run his people through some quick drills in the open space behind the outpost.
Zev moved well. Fast and efficient. His instructions were short and exact.
Dane was watching with his arms crossed and the particular expression he had when something met his standards.
---
"Well?" I said quietly to Dane.
"He will do," Dane said.
From Dane that was practically a declaration of undying respect.
"Good," I said.
---
Riven looked at me.
"You talked to Aldric's nervous three," he said.
"How do you know that?" I asked.
"Aldric told me," he said. "He seemed surprised."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because you did not have to," Riven said. "We are moving either way."
---
"We are moving either way," I agreed. "But one hundred and one people moving with doubt in their chest is weaker than one hundred and one people moving with questions answered."
Riven looked at me for a moment.
"Where did you learn that?" he said.
"I did not learn it anywhere," I said. "It just seems obvious."
---
He looked like he wanted to say something else.
He did not say it.
"We move in an hour," he said instead.
"I know," I said.
---
The hour went fast.
Supplies divided and distributed. Groups organized. Maren moving through everything like she had been doing this her whole life.
Cas and Elle stayed close to me without being asked. Cas had stopped watching the tree line quite as constantly. Elle still had not said much but she had started making eye contact.
Small things. But things.
---
Pip appeared at my side as we were getting ready to move out.
"Final count?" I asked.
"One hundred and one," Pip said. "Plus you. Plus the four of us. So one hundred and six total."
I looked at them.
"You counted yourself and the others separately from everyone else," I said.
"We were here before everyone else," Pip said simply.
---
I almost smiled at that.
"One hundred and six people," I said.
"Heading to a place that has been empty for three hundred years," Pip said. "To start something that has not existed for three hundred years."
They said it without drama. Just facts being stated.
"Yes," I said.
"Good," Pip said. "I was getting bored out here anyway."
---
We moved out as the morning light was getting stronger.
Long line of people through the trees. Children near the middle. Strongest at the front and rear.
Soren ranging ahead. Dane at the back. Zev's people spread along the sides.
One hundred and six people moving north together.
---
I walked near the front and tried not to think about everything that could go wrong.
The pendant was warm in my pocket.
That steady feeling. Patient. Pushing back.
I had stopped trying to understand it and started just accepting it.
---
We had been walking for two hours when Soren came back from ranging ahead faster than his normal pace.
I recognized that pace now.
Something was coming.
---
He reached Riven and me at the same time.
"There is a man ahead," he said. "Alone. Sitting in the middle of the path like he is waiting for someone."
"Armed?" Riven asked.
"Yes," Soren said. "But not drawing. Just sitting."
"Hybrid?" I asked.
Soren paused.
"No," he said. "Pure blood wolf."
---
The three of us looked at each other.
A pure blood wolf sitting alone in unclaimed territory in the middle of our path was not an accident.
"Does he know we are coming?" Riven asked.
"He is facing our direction," Soren said. "So yes."
---
"I will go," I said.
"Kaia—" Riven started.
"A pure blood wolf sitting alone waiting is either a message or a trap," I said. "Either way I need to be the one who faces it."
Riven looked at me.
"Not alone," he said.
"Obviously not alone," I said.
---
Riven and I moved up through the trees toward where Soren had indicated.
The man came into view a minute later.
He was sitting on a fallen log exactly as Soren had described. Relaxed. Like he had all the time in the world.
Young. Maybe mid twenties. Well dressed for someone sitting in the middle of a forest. Dark hair. A sword at his hip that he was very deliberately not touching.
---
He saw us coming and did not move.
When we were close enough to speak he looked directly at me.
Not at Riven.
At me.
"You are harder to find than I expected," he said. "And I expected it to be difficult."
"Who are you?" I said.
---
He reached slowly into his coat.
Riven's hand moved toward his blade.
The man pulled out a sealed letter and held it out toward me.
The seal on it made my stomach drop slightly.
A crown. Not broken.
Whole.
---
"My name is not important right now," he said. "What is important is who sent me."
I looked at the seal.
"Who sent you?" I said.
He met my eyes steadily.
"Someone who says the Alpha King is not your greatest enemy," he said. "And who wants to prove it."