The storm rolled over the mountains like a living thing, tearing through the sky in erratic bursts of lightning.

Reyna urged Ator forward, the Howler’s massive body cutting a clean path through the waist-deep snow. Frostcall’s winds screamed loud enough to drown thought, but Ator’s powerful breathing underneath her kept her centred.

“Southern border,” Reyna muttered, narrowing her eyes as she scanned the tree line of the Silver Oak forest. “They couldn’t have gone far.”

Ator huffed in agreement, steam spilling from her jaws.

Behind them came a miserable groan.

“Tell me why I agreed to this,” Lance chattered, nearly swallowing his own tongue as his Reaper stumbled through the drifts. “This is suicide. Actual suicide.”

“You volunteered,” Reyna said.

“No. You dragged me,” he shot back. “There’s a difference.”

“You’re a Fang of Frostcall. You go where I say you go.”

“I’m a Redfall! We’re built for jungles, not this frozen death trap,” he snapped, tugging his shawl closer until only his eyes were visible. “Prime, I can’t feel my toes.”

“You’ll live.”

“By Odin’s beard! I don’t think I will.”

“You’ll still live.”

Lance cursed under his breath, and Reyna bit back a sigh. She should never have brought him. Redfalls didn’t survive this kind of cold for long. She’d been so focused on tracking the runner team who slipped past them that she ignored the obvious: Lance’s body would give out long before they found the invaders.

A fresh gust slammed into them, nearly knocking him sideways.

“That’s it. I’m dying. Tell Warmaster Bandos I went with honour”

Reyna leaned toward him. “Lance, if you say ‘I’m dying’ one more time, I’ll bury you myself. Head back to the citadel. Now.”

“No.” He stiffened. “I will not leave you alone out here. Berserkers could be with them.”

“What about the Warmaster’s orders?” Reyna scowled. “He called all Fleets back for the Alpha’s arrival.”

Lance winced, like even the thought of Alpha Roth’s arrival made the storm colder. “Exactly. And if you disappear on patrol, I get skinned alive.”

“You’re already courting death.”

“That’s different!”

Reyna pinched the bridge of her nose. “Go back. I’ll finish the trail.”

“No,” he insisted. “I’m not letting you chase a rogue pack alone. I swore an oath.”

“And I’m giving you a direct order, Fang.”

Snow whipped between them. Lance hesitated a moment longer, jaw clenched, then groaned into his scarf.

He managed to growl. “You’re impossible. Fine. But if you don’t return before dusk, I’m hunting you down.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

Ator lifted her head, flashing her fangs at his Reaper until the smaller Shadowbeast squealed and bolted toward the citadel with Lance barely hanging on.

Finally.

Reyna exhaled, brushing Ator’s mane. “Let’s finish this.”

She barely finished the whisper before Ator surged forward, a white blur ripping through the snow. The Howler didn’t run so much as reshape the world around her. Snowbanks dissolved at her paws, parting in fluid waves, as if the tundra itself bent out of respect.

Reyna lowered over her neck, breath tight. The wind shrieked around them, but Ator’s gait stayed impossibly light. No Howler moved like this. No Shadowbeast should’ve been able to twist the storm to its will.

But Ator wasn’t like the others. Everyone knew it, but no one said it aloud.

The forest swallowed them whole in seconds. Branches clawed overhead like skeletal hands, shadows twisting into long, unnatural shapes. Ator slowed, ears pricking as she sniffed the air.

“You smell them too,” Reyna murmured.

A trail brushed her senses; earth, grass, and that pungent scent unique to Greenpeak wolves. The storm tried to smother it, but Ator pushed deeper, her paws sinking silently into the snow.

Reyna slid off her, landing in a crouch. “Stay close.”

Ator’s white fur shimmered, then folded into the shadows at Reyna’s side, her form breaking apart into streaks of darkness that moved like ink in water. A heartbeat later, she was completely gone.

Reyna activated her Blue ability, sight sharpening until she could see through drifting sheets of snow. Her All-Seeing vision revealed fading tracks. Snow Beetle prints, four in a line, and a runner falling behind.

“Smugglers,” she murmured. “Or someone wants us to think so.”

Four wolves huddled inside the metal belly of the runner. But it sat half-buried under snow, and abandoned.

“Strange,” she muttered. “There are no Beetles or Berserkers. Where did you run off to?”

Berserkers didn’t retreat quietly. No, they didn’t retreat, period. If they’d vanished, it meant something far worse had frightened them.

And very few things frightened Berserkers.

Reyna squinted as she looked around. “I'd love to know what scared you away.”

A sudden thump shook the runner. Reyna spun as the doors blew open, and the four wolves launched out in a blur of brown fur and muscle. They hit the snow hard, landing on all fours before shaking ice from their coats.

Reyna drew her blades but didn’t lift them.

They barrelled toward the trail Ator had carved, and their eyes locked on Reyna.

“State your business on Egranox soil,” she ordered.

Growls vibrated the air. One wolf stepped forward, the largest one. He was a mountain of fur and fury. His paws dwarfed the snow. His heartbeat thudded so loudly, Reyna felt it in her ribs.

Golden eyes fixed on her.

Reyna’s pulse stumbled. “Don’t even think about it.”

He thought about it, and took one, slow step forward.

Reyna slid her blades away, crossing her arms calmly. “Bold. Stupid, but bold.”

A deep growl filled the forest.

Ator materialized behind her, not stepping out of shadow, but rising from it, as if the darkness pooled into a living body. Her white fur contrasted violently with the gloom, her eyes glowing ice-blue.

The other wolves backed away cautiously, but not him.

He stared Ator down like he wanted to challenge her place in the hierarchy of the world.

“Shift.” Reyna's voice dropped low. “Now.”

They hesitated.

Ator let out a guttural growl that vibrated the snow at their feet.

The three behind shifted. Their towering forms took shape across the clearing, breath fogging the air. Reyna rarely felt small, but these males dwarfed her like trees.

Her eyes locked on the leader as he finally shifted.

Tawny hair, wild and wind-touselled, with a face carved from stone. A prominent scar slicing from brow to cheek.

A strange ripple brushed across Reyna’s senses, like the unsettling feeling of being seen in a way she couldn’t define. The male’s mismatched eyes; one blue, one amber, held hers a heartbeat too long, as if reading a secret through her gaze. She pushed the sensation aside, unsettled by the way it made her chest tighten.

Her grip tightened around her blades. Even if she wanted to pretend she didn't know who he was, those eyes gave him away.

“Identify yourself,” she said.

He stepped forward until the crest on his cloak was very visible. House Maynord, the ruling Crowned House who conquered Frostcall long ago.

“Odin’s breath,” Reyna muttered, jaw tightening. It was the Alpha of the Crowned House.

Of all the wolves to find in her forest. It had to be him.