Council did not gather in chaos. It gathered in calculation.
Neutral ground carried a different kind of gravity when multiple packs stood upon it. The valley no longer felt like an open clearing between territories; it felt like a pressure chamber where ambition, pride, and hierarchy compressed into something that could either solidify or fracture under strain.
Grimridge arrived first again, not as a display, but as quiet assertion. Cassian did not need banners or numbers to announce himself. The discipline of the wolves who followed him did that well enough. They stood in deliberate formation without appearing rigid, each man positioned as if instinct rather than order had placed him there.
