bChapter /b278

ra’s POV

“Step where I step or the floor cats you.”

St vouchert

Vessa’s breath hit my neck. Water thundered under the steel grates. The tunnel stank like iron and damp fur. Mira took the rear with her shield turned sideways to fit the narrow. Ilia moved ahead of me, one palm on the ceiling, reading the rivets. Eden’s voice cracked in my bead, rough with smoke.

“Alpha, exiled colors mass at the outer yard. Our line holds. Signal when you are clear.”

“Hold the yard,” I said. “I will break the head.”

Ruvan’sugh bounced off the metal. He was close. I could taste the oil he loved. I could hear a lever sigh before it clicked.

“Do not chase his hands,” Ilia whispered. “Chase his feet.”

“Copy,” Vessa said, sliding left.

We turned a corner and found a little room of valves and chains. Ruvan stood with his back to a wheel, ringless hand shining with sweat. Blue fuel glowed in ss bowls set into the wall. The air hummed. He smiled like a teacher with bad news.

“Your mother begged for one thing,” he said. “A kinder end.”

Mira stepped into his line and raised her shield. “He talks to keep his fingers busy.”

“Watch the floor,” Ilia warned. “Grid patterns. Dead drop.”

I lifted my chin. “You killed poetry when you learned bills.”

Ruvan’s eyes brightened. “Then let me teach you the cost of your crown.” He spun the wheel at his hip. Chains rattled. The grate under us shuddered. Water roared louder.

“Now,” I said.

Ilia flew. She snared his forearm with a loop and braced on a pipe. Vessa shed the chain holding the counterweight. The wheel jerked back and smashed Ruvan’s hand between spoke and post. He screamed. The blue bowls red.

“Prisca,” I said.

“On it,” Prisca’s voice came from the hall behind us. She slid in on her knees, jammed a soaked cloth under the hatch, and stomped. The re died to a blue breath.

Ruvan panted and bared his teeth. “You think drowning scares me.”

“I think dying while nobody watches scares you more,” I said.

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He lunged for a second lever with his left hand. Mira met him with her shield and pinned his arm against the wheel, Metal screamed. Ilia twisted. Bove popped. He sagged but smiled anyway, bloody and proud.

“Look up.” he hissed.

We did. A narrow pipe above the hatch vibrated. A de of water cut along the seam and sprayed Kaia’s face in my head. I shoved the thought away. Not here. Not now.

“Leira,” I said.

“Left valve,” she answered from the doorway, fingers already inside a housing. “Turn slow.”

“Do it,” I said.

The pipe sighed and went still. The room breathed. Ruvan tried to break free again. Vessa put a knife through his sleeve and into the wood. He was pinned, messy and mean.

“You will kill me for the crowd,” he panted. “You need it.”

“I need a tomorrow,” I said. “You are not in it.”

“Then do it,” he spat. “Be a clean Alpha and make a clean corpse.”

I put my de to his throat and did not press. “No. You get judgment.”

He blinked. “Mercy?”

“Work,” I said. “Hard. Long. Public.”

Heughed, a ragged, ugly sound. “They will kill me on the way to the post.”

“Not if they want to keep their seats,” I said. “This ends withw, not more chains.”

Boots spilled into the tunnel behind us. Eden, Garron, and two of Dawn Wing slid into the valve room, wet to the knees. Eden took in the pin, the broken wheel, my de at Ruvan’s throat. He nodded once.

“Signal received,” he said. “Yard holds. Exiled line wavers.”

Ruvan bared his teeth. “You will lose them when you stop bleeding for them.”

Garron stepped closer. “Or we will keep them because we stop bleeding them.”

I pressed the t of my de to Ruvan’s jaw and looked at Eden. “Bind him. Quiet. No trophies.”

Eden snapped cuffs on his wrists and ankles and looped the chain to Mira’s shield handle. She would drag a mountain if I asked. She did notin.

“Go,” I said. “We end this outside.”

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78

We climbed into daylight under the eastern tower. Smoke leaned across the yard. Bodiesy where they fell, faces turned to the sky. Our wolves held the inner wall. The exiled colors massed in a crooked crescent. They carried patched banners and eyes that could not agree.

Cael stood on the steps of the gate. He looked hollow but upright. Elder Briar had one hand on his elbow and the other on a ledger that never seemed to end. The small bowl me burned at the foot of the steps. A line of wolves reached out, touched it with two fingers, and moved on. Simple. Honest.

Thorne’s ce at my left was empty. The hole he left did not make me smaller. It made me stand taller.

Mira hauled Ruvan into the light and mmed him to his knees on the stones. He stared at the sky as if it owed him something. It did not.

Vessa flicked blood from her de. “Say the words,” she murmured.

“Soon,” I said.

I walked to the foot of the steps. The yard dipped to a hush that tasted like rain at the edge of a storm. I raised my voice and let it carry.

“This is how it ends. Not with a crown. With a choice.”

A woman in exiled colorsughed. “Choice? You have your army. We have our hunger.”

“Then eat this,” Garron called from the wall. He held up a sack and tore it open. Grain spilled down the stones like sand. “Fenreach shares. Ridge shares. We all eat or none of us do.”

The crowd shifted. Men looked at their hands. Women looked at each other.

Cael’s voice lifted from the steps, thin and clear. “BloodMoon has lived by the rule that the strongest takes. Thatw is dead. The neww stands here.” He pointed his chin at me. “You do not have to like it. You only have to live under iit/i.”

“Our children should not learn to beg from knives,” I said. “Put them behind you and put your des down.”

A man with a scar over both eyes shook his head. “And trust you not to hang us with our own belts?”

“You will hang if you keep cutting children,” I said. “You will work if you drop your steel now. You will get bread if you stand still long enough to take it.”

Ruvan snorted blood at my boots. “Spin your pretty rules. They will shiver and grab the old ones back when winteresb.” /b

I looked down at him. “Not if we make new habits before the frost.”

Ilia crouched on the wall above me and signaled with two fingers. Archers. Exiled nk creeping. I did not turn my head.

“Eden,” I said. “Drums.”

He raised his hand. The first drum hit once, slow and deep. Two more joined it. The beat settled into the yard

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like a spine. Our wolves squared their shoulders and set their feet. The line became a wall.

“Last call,” I shouted. “Drop steel. Take work.”

780

On the exiled line, a woman passed her dagger to the man next to her and stepped back. He watched her, jaw tight, then let his de fall. Two more followed. A small wave ran through the crescent. It hit the hard men and broke there.

Ruvanughed again. “You peel the weak first.”

“Then you are next,” Vessa said softly.

A rider pushed through the exiled line and held up a stained scarf. Wyrmshade colors showed under it. He looked like he had slept in a ditch. “Parley,” he called. “We carry names who swore to break your council.”

Cael’s mouth pulled tight. “After.”

I nodded. “After.”

The rider swallowed and lowered his hand.

I stepped sideways and put my palm on the bowl me. It warmed my skin and made my heart settle. I turned my back to Ruvan and faced our wall.

“Mira,” I said. “Ready the push that stops a push.”

“Always,” she said.

“Vessa, take the right bend and break their nerve,” I said.

“dly,” she said.

“Ilia,” I said. “Cut their archers loose from their pride.”

She smiled and vanished along the parapet.

“Zara, shields up. Serena, keep the hurt breathing. Nora, keep my feet safe. Leira, catch any door that tries to close.”

A low murmur ran along our line. It sounded like a throat clearing before a song.

I lifted my de. “This is not about who can roar louder. This is about who can live together without chewing the same bone. Take the step you want your children to copy.”

The exiled captain, a thick man with silver in his beard and hunger in his eyes, spat and raised his sword. “Enough stories.” He charged. Ten followed. Then twenty. The hard men finally chose.

“Now,” I said.

The wall moved like a tide. Shields met steel. Our left held. Vessa’s right bent, then snapped forward. She found the captain by how he shouted and took his knee out. Ilia dropped a rope on the archer line and sent

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three men stumbling from their perches. Serena dragged a wounded boy clear and shoved cloth into a hole that would have stolen his air. Nora yanked a trip wire away before it caught Mira’s ankle. Leira jammed a gate with a wedge so clean it looked like it belonged there.

bI /bwent straight for the captain as he tried to stand. He swung wild. I parried, stepped in, and put him on his back with a hard, ugly move that did not care about pretty. He looked up at me with shock and fear and something like relief. I put my de to his throat and paused.

“Drop it,” I said.

He let go. The sword nged and slid. I put my boot on the hilt.

“Work.” I said.

He nodded, breathing fast. He understood faster than I expected.

The hard men saw their captain blink first and felt something in their gut go ck. Vessa howled once, short and sharp. Our line stepped through theirs like ab through knots. The yard turned from fight to fall. Not a rout. A release.

“Enough,” I shouted. “Down or out.”

Swords hit stone. Knives ttered. A few ran. Most sagged. Serena’s voice cut through the noise, counting, always counting. “Keep them breathing. Keep them honest.”

Ruvan watched it with a small, empty smile. “You did not win,” he told me. “You dyed losing.”

I looked at Eden. “Bring the pole.”

He looked surprised, then grinned and ran. Jory appeared with him, dragging a wrapped bundle. They nted it at the center of the yard. Elder Briar opened the cloth and held out a folded g. Not a crest I had ever worn. Not Direstone’s. Not Ashfang’s old red. White field. Two moons in charcoal, one thin, one full, crossed at their lower curves like a simple knot. No crown. No sword.

“What is that,” Garron asked, softer than usual.

“A promise,” I said.

I took the cloth, tied it to the pole with my own locket’s spare cord, and raised it until it snapped in the smoky wind. It did not glitter. It did not shout. It just held.

Cael stepped down to my side. He put one hand on the pole and the other on my shoulder. His voice carried without strain. “Under this mark, we judge by what you do, not who you kiss up to. Under this mark, children are not levers. Under this mark, no one eats alone if there is soup in the pot. Under this mark, work ends what knives started.”

The yard listened. Then it answered, first ragged, then steady. Wolves touched the pole with two fingers and moved on. Exiled men and women stared, then copied. A small boy with a tear on his cheek touched it and wiped his face with the same hand.

Ruvan choked on augh that sounded like a cough. “Cheap cloth.”

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“Strong wind,” I said.

Eden yanked Ruvan to his feet. “You get to see what you failed to build.”

“Lucky me,” he said.

I faced the yard and lifted my voice onest time. “BloodMoon ends today. Ashfang begins. We carry both names in our mouths until the old one stops hurting. Then we carry only the one that fits.”

Garron came to the foot of the steps. He looked at the pole and then at me. “Do you want me ito /ikneel.”

“No,” I said. “I want you to work.”

He nodded. For once he did not argue.

Elder Briar held up the ledger. “Witnesses to the change.”

“Write the whole yard,” Cael said. “Then you can stop writing.”

The old man smiled like his hand might forgive himter.

I turned to Mira. “Chain him,” I said, nodding at Ruvan. “Not to the post. To the pump.”

She smiled like a wall that had learned a joke. “Best chain.”

Ruvan stared at me. “You would make me pull water for the girls I tried to buy.”

“Yes,” I said. “You will drinkst.”

He opened his mouth to spit. He swallowed instead.

Vessa stepped to my side and looked at the g. “It is in.”

“Good,” I said. “insts.”

Cael squeezed my shoulder. “Say thest order.”

I looked at my wolves. At the women who had climbed walls and cut wires and held doors. At the boys who would grow into something better if we let them. At the men who would have to learn new habits or go hungry.

“Work,” I said. “Feed. Clean. Bind. Bury with names. Then sleep near someone who trusts you. Tomorrow we start audits and amends. Nobody hides. Nobody starves. Nobody rules by fear.”

The yard moved. Not as one. As many. That was the point.

A runner skidded to a stop at the steps, breathless and wide–eyed. “Alpha. The parley riders are back. They say the exiled council will send ast offer at dusk.”

I wiped a smear of oil from my de and nodded. “Good. Tell them to bring their offer to the new g.”

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“And if they refuse,” he asked.

“Then hear it from my mouth instead,” I said. “We do not bargain with chains.”

He swallowed and ran.

Cael leaned closer. “Can you carry all this.”

“Yes,” I said. “But hold the other end.”

He smiled. “Always.”

“Then say it loud,” I told him.

He turned to the yard. “Two moons. Onew.”

“Two moons,” the yard answered. “Onew.”

I looked at Ruvan. He looked away first. Good.

“Bring him to the pump,” I said. “And start with buckets.”