Chapter 19. The Quiet After

They stacked the dead at dusk.

No proclamations. No drums. Just the thud of wood. The hush of hands. The scrape of iron nails as the bier came together under the west wall, where the wardstones still hummed like they were afraid to quiet. The hum was constant, a low nervous animal at the edge of hearing. Smoke curled from the braziers, rising into shapes you could almost mistake for wolves mid-leap—if you stared long enough, if you let your mind drift into the patterns. I tried not to.

Elyan’s body lay at the center. Someone had combed his hair, smoothing the cowlick at his temple. Someone else had laid his dagger across his chest, wrapped in a strip of blue cloth that meant first blood, first oath, first betrayal. I wanted to hate him. My wolf, stubborn thing, just kept staring at the small scar on his knuckle—the one his thumb worried whenever “Luna-bloods” were mentioned—and wondered how many years it took to grow into a choice like that.

Mavienne lit the pyre w