Chapter Fifteen: The Wall and the Birth

Wren says no to the chair, to her face, and names the Warden for what she is: not a wolf who survived the leash but one who became it. And the Warden, cold as winter, reveals she came alone for one reason only, to hold Wren at the gate until her body did exactly this. The birth comes under siege, in the deepest stone, with a Lycan King's back to the door and an army at the wall. And Fenna is born silver-eyed and does not cry, a doubled dire-line come home, and every wolf for forty miles feels it in the blood, including the leashed ones in the Warden's own holdfast. The leashes begin to break. Comment if you felt that bell, and add to library, because the war just changed shape.