[Theron's POV]
I stake out the dead drop myself.
Senna argued against it — quietly, firmly, with the pragmatic insistence of a Beta who understands that Alphas don't sit in forests for three nights when they have trackers for this purpose.
"Let me send Joss," she said. "He's our best shadow. He can observe the drop without being detected and bring you everything you need."
"Joss is good, but this isn't about information, Senna. It's about watching her face when she does it. Whether she hesitates or looks like someone completing a mission or someone performing an act she's already abandoned."
"And that distinction requires you personally?"
"It’s the difference between a threat I need to eliminate and a person I might be able to reach. Yes, it requires me personally."
Senna held my gaze. "Three nights, Theron. If she doesn't show in three, we revisit the approach."
First night — nothing. I wait downwind of the hollow oak, motionless, letting the forest settle around me. Second night — nothing: rain, steady and cold.
Third night, she comes.
Ciri moves through the trees with practiced silence — footfalls deliberate, path curving wide around patrol scent. This woman was trained, not by rogues but by someone with resources and discipline.
She reaches the oak, kneels, and places a folded parchment in the hollow.
Then she hesitates. Her hand lingers on the bark, and her head bows — the posture of a person performing an act they no longer believe in. Ten seconds… fifteen… then she rises and leaves.
I retrieve the parchment. The code is military standard — taught to scouts in pack academies, so I crack it within the hour.
The contents: patrol schedules I changed two weeks ago, a keep layout missing recent modifications, my personal routine from a month ago. Every piece is true enough to pass casual verification, but outdated enough to be operationally useless. She's giving her handler a portrait of Shadowpine as it was, not as it is.
She's feeding her handler stale intelligence.
I don't confront her. Instead, I begin a test — feeding her specific information that's true but strategically insignificant, then watching to see if it reaches the dead drop.
Over the following week, I feed Ciri specific pieces of information — true but strategically insignificant. During a morning briefing, I mention the northern patrol increase.
"We're running four rotations now instead of three," I tell her. "The ridge activity has me uneasy."
"Four rotations is a significant resource commitment for unconfirmed movement. Have the trackers found anything concrete?"
"Not yet, but I'd rather spend the patrols and find nothing than save them and miss something."
"What about pulling from the southern detail? Those routes have been quiet for months — you could redistribute without increasing total expenditure."
"That's a good instinct, but the southern routes cover the trade road. If I thin them out, I'm gambling supply security against a threat that might not exist."
"Then run the four rotations for two weeks and reassess. If the ridge activity hasn't produced actionable intelligence by then, scale back and reallocate."
She nods, makes a note, and the information sits between us like a coin — mine to give, hers to spend or save.
Two days later, I drop a second piece during a supply review. "The council approved the elevated platform construction for the western approach. Work starts next month."
"About time," Ciri says. "The spring melt will be here in eight weeks. If the platforms aren't in place by then, you lose another season."
"That’s what I told the elders, twice. They responded by forming a subcommittee."
"A subcommittee? To discuss walkways."
"Welcome to pack governance."
"At this rate, the walkways will be finished around the time the next generation needs them."
"I'm choosing to interpret your sarcasm as solidarity."
"Interpret it however you like, Alpha. The melt doesn't care about subcommittees."
Third piece, four days later. An evening session, maps spread across the desk. "Kira's intelligence network flagged movement in the eastern territories. Possible Broken Crown remnants regrouping near the Ashford border."
Her hand stills on the map — a fraction of a second — then resumes. "How reliable is intelligence?"
"Enough that Malik dispatched a reconnaissance team."
"The eastern territories have been unstable since the Order's collapse. Regrouping was inevitable — scattered cells always seek each other when pressure eases. Did the intelligence specify numbers?"
"Estimates suggest forty to sixty wolves, still not enough to threaten a fortified position."
"Unless they're the vanguard for something larger."
"That's Malik's concern as well, which is why the reconnaissance team includes his best trackers."
I wait for the dead drop.
A week passes. I check the hollow oak every night after Ciri returns to her quarters. The parchment she left is gone — collected by whoever services the drop, but no new report appears.
Three pieces of verifiable intelligence planted in her path, each significant enough that any handler would expect it in a field report.
She withheld every piece. She's protecting Shadowpine from her own handler.
I examine the parchment itself. The paper carries a scent — pine resin mixed with a mineral tang that belongs to a specific geography.
I pull the intelligence file and find Senna.
"The paper is Ashenmoor stock," I tell her, spreading the file across my desk. "The code is eastern military standard. The current Alpha took power two years ago — a man named Cyrus."
Senna's expression sharpens. "Why do I know that name?"
"He had two sisters. The first left Ashenmoor years ago for political alliances in the south."
Senna's voice goes flat. "Celeste was from Ashenmoor."
"And Cyrus had a second sibling — younger, invisible, rarely mentioned in pack records, absent from diplomatic rosters." I turn to the census page. "Listed under minor household members with no title, no rank."
Senna reads the entry. Her face goes pale.
"Ciri," she says.
"Celeste's sister, sent by her brother to infiltrate the pack of the man who killed their sibling." I press my palms flat against the desk. "The woman I've been confiding in — her brother sent her to map my weaknesses for an attack that's coming!"
"What do you want to do?"
"The old Theron would burn this to the ground. He’d confront her, expel her, send her back in pieces." I stare at the census page.
"But she's been withholding real intelligence, Senna. Every piece I planted, she kept to herself. She's protecting us from her own brother."
"Or running a deeper game than we can see."
"Maybe. But I watched her at that dead drop — saw the posture of someone who doesn't believe in the mission anymore." I close the file. "I'm going to build the right response and wait for the right moment. I won’t act out of rage."
"And if she's still a threat?"
"I'll deal with it, but not before I understand why Celeste's sister is protecting the man who killed her."
Senna leaves. I sit alone in the study, staring at a name written in faded ink on a census page — a name that belonged to a ghost in her own family, a woman no one bothered to see.
The same woman who sat across from me in this room and told me she learned to be useful because being visible was never an option.
The irony is precise enough to draw blood.