Torches burned in ordered rows. Weapons glinted. Breath steamed faintly in the cooling night.
And beneath it all—expectation. Restless. Dangerous.
Marcus stood at Thessian's side, overlooking the grounds. Even he looked altered by the scale of it.
"Two thousand," he said quietly. Not reporting. Almost testing the number aloud.
Thessian said nothing. His gaze moved over the massed ranks below. For one strange moment he could feel them—not as a crowd, but as presence. Thousands of heartbeats. Thousands of instincts. Thousands of wolves holding still beneath one shared tension.
The sensation was almost overwhelming.
Then he stepped forward onto the stone overlook.
Every eye below lifted at once.
Silence spread across the training grounds with unnerving speed. No shouted order demanded it. It simply happened.
Because the Alpha stood before them.
Marcus lowered his voice. "If this fails…"
"It won't," Thessian answered without looking at him.
He raised one hand.
