Dawn comes softly this time.
No horns. No shouted orders. No wolves running the perimeter with panic sharp in their scent. The pack gathers because it always gathers, because habit and instinct still know how to move even when certainty does not. The air is cool and pale, light just beginning to thin the shadows between bodies. Wolves stand in loose clusters, shoulders angled inward, voices muted. No one laughs. No one argues.
I stand at the center of it, not elevated, not framed by ceremony. Just present, feet planted on stone worn smooth by generations of paws and boots. No markings distinguish me from anyone else. No symbol announces authority. That absence feels deliberate, necessary.
The quiet tells me everything.
Something has ended.
They know it. I know it. The land knows it to
