Chapter 34 · Provocation at the Edge

Vane’s wolves had been pissing on the border stone for six days straight. On the seventh, he came to watch us pretend it didn’t matter.

I smelled him from the tree line. Sage and copper gone sour—the scent of an Alpha who’s been nursing a grudge for too long. My stomach turned. Six weeks of this, and I’d learned toswallow the bile. Keep my eyes dry. Keep my mouth shut. I pressed my thumb hard under my ribs, breathing through mynose until the nausea passed.

“Stay behind me,” Valerius said. He didn’t evenlook back.

“Don’t start.”

“Seraphina.”

That was it.My name, flat as an order he was too tired to dress up. I stayed behind him anyway. Not because hetold me to. Because the ground past the line was frozen, and the air carried the rank, wet scent of fifteenstrangers.

Twelve Iron-Crag enforcers fanned out behind us, their boots crunching on frost. I counted Vane’s wolves twice, just like Mirren taught me: count what you see, double it, addone for the one hiding in the brush. Twenty-nine. Maybe thirty.

“What does he want?” I muttered.

“To be seen.” Valerius’s jaw tightened.