The dawn was pale, fragile, and deceptively calm.
Aria stood atop the Citadel's main tower, eyes scanning the horizon where shadows stretched across the forests like living fingers. Her wolf stirred beneath her skin, restless, coiled, alert to the faintest tremor in the earth, the slightest pulse of magic in the air. The Council was moving, every piece calculated, every step measured—but Aria could feel it. They were coming, not as scattered wolves or desperate enforcers, but as a coordinated storm.
Damien appeared beside her without a sound, presence anchoring her in the quiet tension. His golden eyes scanned the horizon as though he could see the enemy's movements before they occurred. "It begins," he murmured, voice low, intimate, vibrating with anticipation and warning.
Aria exhaled, wolf twitching beneath her skin. "Then we meet it head-on."
The first wave of attack hit the southern perimeter just as the sun broke the mist.
