No pack wanted the strip of land between the borders. It was all old fences, burned stumps, and snow that no paw had touched.

I crossed it at dawn with Barnaby pressed against my legs.

My hands wouldn't stop shaking. Every hour my stomach rolled, and I had to lean against a tree until it passed. The cold place on my neck pulsed with every heartbeat. It felt like reaching for a hand that wasn't there anymore.

*Lyra?* I called inside.

Nothing. Not even a breath.

So I did the only thing I had left. I thought.

Redmoor treaty. Clause four gave us shared hunting grounds north of the ridge. Clause nine carried Connor's signature and my terms. Stoneharrow river rights took nine weeks and three drafts, and I wrote the last one at the kitchen table at two in the morning while he slept. The armory cost forty-one thousand from my mother's trust, moved in March of our third year. The border posts cost sixty-two thousand. The new roof on the Alpha house cost eighteen.

I said them out loud as we walked. Dates. Numbers. Names. Barnaby wagged at every one, like I was telling him a story.

I had no paper. No phone. Connor had paid for the phone, so it stayed behind. Fine. I built the file in my head instead, room by room, like a house. If I couldn't hold a pen, I would hold the facts.

That night I found a hunter's shed with half a roof. I lay down on the dirt floor. Barnaby curled into my stomach, small and hot as a coal.

He didn't know what a rejection was. He didn't know what a rogue was. He only knew I was there.

"Good boy," I whispered through chattering teeth. "You're the only one who stayed."

He sighed and fell asleep. I didn't.

*

On the second day, I was hungry enough to chew wild mint from under the snow. It was sharp and a little bitter.

That bitterness stopped me cold.

*Did you drink your tea today?*

I saw Connor in our kitchen, his sleeves rolled up, making my tea himself. Honey. A pinch of clove. He used to smile while he stirred.

When did he start doing that?

I sat down hard in the snow and made myself remember.

It was year two. I had asked him where he went at night. He came home smelling of someone else's perfume. He laughed at me and said I was tired. The next morning he brought me breakfast in bed and kissed my forehead.

That afternoon, I had my first panic attack.

I went through the years one by one. The bathroom floor. The infirmary closet. The night before the Blackfen talks. Every single episode came a few hours after something he had handed me. And every time came after I had asked a question he didn't like.

The clove was there to hide the taste. I knew that because I was the one who taught him. Years ago, I showed him how healers hide wolfsbane in medicine so patients will swallow it.

He had listened so carefully.

I waited to break. I waited for the tears and the shaking and the old voice in my head that said *something's wrong with you.*

They didn't come.

Something else came instead, something cold and clean. Nothing was wrong with me. Something had been done to me. That was different. That could be proven.

I stood up and brushed off the snow, and I added a new room to the house in my head. I called it *the tea.*

*

On the fifth day, Barnaby growled.

It was a tiny sound for such a small dog, but he planted his paws and showed his baby teeth at the trees.

I smelled him before I saw him. Leather. Gun oil. And under it, the faint ghost of my own healing, still sitting in his scar.

Trevor Hayes stepped out of the pines.

"You're a long way from home," he said. He tried to sound hard, but his eyes kept sliding off my face.

"I don't have one," I said. "Say what he sent you to say."

He swallowed. "The video went out three days ago. Redmoor. Stoneharrow. Blackfen. Every allied pack on the continent. The Lycan courts got it too." He paused. "Everyone's seen you on that floor."

I waited.

"The Alpha says you'll come to the Conclave," Trevor went on. "You'll stand up in front of the Council. You'll say you lied at the banquet. You'll say he built Ashveil alone." He took a breath. "If you don't, he'll petition them to brand you rogue for life. You won't have land rights anywhere. Any pack can kill you on sight."

Barnaby kept growling against my ankle.

"How's your chest, Trevor?"

He flinched like I had hit him.

"Six hours," I said quietly. "I held your ribs shut for six hours. You were screaming for your mother. Do you remember?"

His jaw worked. "He promised me Delta rank."

"I'm sure he did."

Trevor looked past me, toward the dark ridge to the east. That was Lycan land. Ironveil.

"You're heading that way," he said. "They'll rip you apart. A wolfless rogue in Lycan territory? You won't make it a mile."

"Then you have nothing to worry about."

He stared at me. Then he turned and went back into the trees. He didn't even shift. He just walked.

I picked Barnaby up. He licked my jaw, still rumbling.

"Shh," I said. "He's gone."

The wind turned and came down off the eastern ridge. It carried something cold and deep, like cedar after a frost.

Under my ribs, in the quiet place, something stirred. Then it went still again.

I started walking east.