Chapter 28

Mara's POV

By the time we reached Ironwood, the Central Recall had crossed three territories. The reports arrived in pieces: a guard in Ashfall who had walked off his post with no memory of deciding to leave, two of the children we had freed who woke crying and tried to make for the southern road, a woman in Black Hollow who could not unclench her hand from the stable gate. They had all passed through Concord custody or carried one of its old seals. Most of the wolves around them felt nothing at all.

That made the command harder to see and much easier for frightened people to call illness, weakness, or disloyalty. Lucien had stayed in Ashfall to intercept the ones already on the road. Tamsin sent him our updates by courier, and every time the horse changed at a post I watched the riders' faces before I listened to their news.

Ron