The wind from the north brings more than cold.
It carries the scent of earth trampled by too many feet. The smell of old blood that was never cleaned. The stench of lawless wolves.
North Ridge moves before the sun has fully risen.
Not the entire pack.
Aurelia chooses carefully.
Lucien at her side.
Darius with the most disciplined of the Iron Claw forces.
Alaric as a balance of political power.
Cassian as the mind that reads the terrain before the terrain reads them.
"We are not going to destroy," Aurelia says before they depart. "We are going to stop the spread."
Darius lifts his chin. "What if they attack first?"
"Fight back," she replies calmly.
No hesitation. No softness.
Balance.
The journey north takes two days.
The closer they get to the borderlands, the clearer the changes become.
Small villages are empty.
Numerous, unorganized footprints.
Trees clawed with no pattern of territory.
