[Theron's POV]
Two weeks isn't enough. Shadowpine can hold — I've rebuilt these walls and retrained these wolves, but holding and winning are different things, measured in reinforcements I don't have.
I need allies, immediately.
I draft the ravens within the hour. ‘Cyrus of Ashenmoor is marching on Shadowpine to avenge Celeste's death. The force estimated eighty to one hundred wolves, so reinforcements are needed. Timeline: two weeks.’
I don't mention Ciri. That conversation requires context no raven's scroll can carry.
I call the war council that evening. Senna, my senior wolves, and the patrol leaders crowd around the map table. The mood is grim but focused.
I lay out the intelligence, crediting Ciri as a defector without revealing her mission's full scope. Some wolves bristle.
"She's been here for weeks," Garrett, my senior patrol leader, says flatly. "Showed up bleeding on our border with a story that didn't add up. Now she's suddenly a strategic asset? How do we know this isn't part of whatever game she's playing?"
"The intelligence she's provided checks against everything we can independently verify," Senna says, and the hall goes quiet. When my Beta speaks in defense of someone she's personally furious with, it carries weight.
"I've cross-referenced her force estimates against the scout reports and the movement patterns our eastern patrols have logged for weeks. Her numbers are consistent. Her analysis of Cyrus's tactical preferences matches everything we know about Ashenmoor's military tradition."
"Personal feelings about how the intelligence was obtained are irrelevant," she continues, meeting Garrett's gaze with the steel authority that makes her the best Beta I've ever had. "We use every advantage available, and right now, she is the most significant advantage we possess."
The room absorbs this. Garrett doesn't look happy, but he nods.
"Bring her in," I say.
Ciri enters, and the tension is thick enough to breathe. Every wolf turns — measuring, weighing. She doesn't flinch but walks to the table and begins.
"Cyrus favors three approaches, and he'll choose based on terrain and ego — both of which I can predict with reasonable confidence." She traces the routes on the map.
"His primary option is the eastern pass. Secondary option is the northern ridge approach, which offers concealment but restricts his force to single-file movement through the tree line. He won't choose it — dividing his column feels like weakness to him. Tertiary option is the southern valley, which provides supply route access but extends his approach by four days. His impatience makes this the least likely."
"So we fortify the eastern pass," Garrett says.
"Make it look vulnerable. Cyrus commits hardest when he believes he's found a weakness. If the eastern approach appears under-defended, he'll pour everything through it without scouting the flanks. That's when your ridge positions close the trap."
The clinical detachment in her voice earns grudging respect — I see it in the way my strategists lean forward, the way questions shift from skeptical to operational.
She fields every challenge with precision, adapting her recommendations based on terrain knowledge the council provides. She's not performing, she is working.
The woman who arrived bleeding and afraid is gone. In her place stands the strategist, the fighter, the mind Cyrus should have valued and didn't. He had this asset in his own family and treated her as disposable. The waste infuriates me more than the espionage.
The council runs three hours: defensive positions assigned, patrols restructured, supply reserves calculated. The wolves file out with focused urgency.
The hall empties, but Ciri still gathers her documents.
"Stay."
She stops and turns. The silence between us is private, weighted with everything we've been circling since the forest.
"When this is over — if we survive — there are things between us that need to be addressed, but they have nothing to do with your brother or Shadowpine's defense."
"I know," she says, and her voice carries the quiet steadiness of someone who has already accepted that the conversation will be painful and is choosing to face it anyway.
"I need you to understand that… The Alpha needs your cooperation. And the man—" I stop, taking a breath. "The man needs time he doesn't have to figure out what to do with what he feels."
"You don't have to figure it out now, Theron. It can wait."
The agreement feels like a pact sealed in the space between what we want and what the next two weeks will demand.
A runner arrives before dawn the following morning, carrying Kira's response sealed with silver wax. I break the seal and read. Senna stands at my shoulder, scanning the words as fast as I do.
Reinforcements are coming. Malik is leading them personally — a detachment of crown soldiers and intelligence operatives, traveling fast, estimated arrival in ten days. Magnus Ironridge has volunteered his wolves for the defense of Shadowpine.
I stare at the name. I've never met Magnus — I know him only through Kira's correspondence as a new Alpha whose charm won Kira's interest while keeping Malik wary.
"Ironridge," Senna reads. "How many wolves?"
"Thirty experienced mountain fighters, according to Kira's count. Magnus offered them the moment he heard about Cyrus's march."
"That's suspiciously generous."
"Malik said the same," I tap the relevant line. "He's bringing Magnus close specifically to keep him watched, but the wolves are genuine, and we need the numbers."
I show the letter to Ciri. She reads it, and the color drains from her face.
"What is it?"
"I've heard of Ironridge — in Ashenmoor, before Cyrus sent me here. Some say he's a reformer who broke from his father's isolationism. Others insist he's an opportunist who reads the political winds and positions himself wherever advantage lies."
"Malik appears to share your assessment."
She looks at me, and the strategist in her eyes has replaced the vulnerability from last night — sharp, focused, reading the situation the way she reads battlefields.
"Thirty additional wolves could turn the defense in our favor. Or, they could introduce a variable we can't control at the worst possible moment."
"We'll take the wolves and watch the man. Same strategy I used with you."
The ghost crosses her face. "And look how that turned out."
"It turned out with you standing in my war council, arming my pack against your own brother. I'd call that a success, Ciri. An ugly, complicated, painful success — but a success."
She holds my gaze, then returns to the maps. Reinforcements in ten days. An army in the passes led by a man who swore a blood oath over his sister's memory.
Somewhere between the threat and the defense, something fragile is taking shape between two people who haven't yet earned the right to name it.