The heavy oak doors of the grand hall slammed back against the stone wall with a crack like thunder.

"Wren!"

Nolan’s voice cut through the cold corridor. Heavy, rapid strides echoed on the flagstones behind me.

I didn't stop. I kept walking toward the annex lockers, the black band of Ravenscar tied firmly around my wrist. The fabric was rough against my pulse, grounding me.

His hand caught my shoulder, fingers digging deep into the wool of my jacket. He spun me around, forcing me back against the arched stone pillar.

"Are you completely out of your mind?" Nolan’s face was flushed, his amber eyes blazing with wounded pride. "You don't walk away from me. Not like that. Not in front of the entire assembly."

"Take your hand off me, Nolan," I said, my voice level.

He let go, but he didn't back away. Instead, he crowded my space, dropping his tone into the low, persuasive register he always used when he wanted me to bend.

"Look at me," he commanded softly. "You think I wanted to leave you down there? It was strategy, Wren. Pure strategy."

I looked at him, feeling an odd, hollow detachment. "Strategy."

"The council elders were watching every breath I took," he said, gesturing back toward the assembly hall. "The Alpha seat isn't handed down by blood alone. If I took an Omega as our fifth, the traditionalists would have torn my leadership apart before we even left the gates. Brielle has the bloodline. She satisfies the council. You know how politics work here."

"So you gave her my slot."

"It's a title, Wren. That's all it is," he said, frustration creeping back into his voice. "I did it to protect my position—to protect *our* future. Once I take the Alpha seat after the Hunt, nobody will question who I bring to my side. You just had to wait."

"I waited two years," I said. "And you traded my name the second it bought you an advantage."

Nolan let out a sharp, impatient breath, running a hand through his hair. He looked at me as if I were a child throwing a tantrum over a broken toy.

"Fine. You're angry. You have a right to be," he conceded, extending an open palm toward me. "We'll deal with that later. Right now, I need the updated trail ledger. Brielle needs the snowpack margins for the northern shelf before morning drills."

I stared at his open hand.

"The map Nolan unrolled out there was the primary survey," he continued smoothly, entirely confident in his entitlement. "You spent two months refining the switchback elevations. Hand over the field notes. Those routes were mapped on Silvercrest territory, funded by Silvercrest provisions. They belong to the pack."

Without a word, I reached into the side pocket of my leather satchel.

Nolan’s jaw relaxed slightly, a faint flicker of smug satisfaction touching the corners of his mouth. He expected me to cave. He had spent months training me to absorb the blows and quietly clean up after his ambitions.

My fingers wrapped around the small, weathered notebook bound in black waterproof oilcloth. Every drop of ink inside was mine—crevasse depths, shifting scree, wind tunnels that could rip a wolf off a cliff face.

I pulled it out.

Nolan reached for it.

Before his fingers could graze the edge, I dropped the book straight into the deep interior compartment of my pack, pulled the heavy brass zipper shut, and fastened the buckle tight.

Nolan’s hand froze in midair.

"I mapped those ridges with my own boots while you were drinking in the high hall," I said, meeting his stare without blinking. "Not another line. Not another elevation. From this second forward, I won't revise a single coordinate for your team."

The muscle along his jaw ticked violently. "Wren, stop playing games. You’re embarrassing yourself, and you’re jeopardizing the pack. Give me the notes, and we can pretend this Ravenscar stunt never happened."

He reached for the strap of my satchel to take it by force.

A shadow fell over both of us.

The temperature in the corridor seemed to drop three degrees in an instant. The faint scent of crushed cedar and frost pushed past Nolan’s heavy pine scent.

Ronan stood just behind Nolan’s left shoulder, arms crossed over his massive chest, a wall of pure muscle. Asher leaned against the adjacent pillar, tossing a hunting knife between his hands with casual malice. Elias watched from three paces back, his hand resting loosely on the hilt at his hip.

And right beside me stepped Cassian.

The Ravenscar Alpha didn't draw a weapon. He didn't raise his voice. He simply placed himself between me and Nolan, his sheer presence forcing the Silvercrest heir back half a step.

"Get your hands out of her space," Cassian said.

Nolan bristled, his Alpha aura surging to push back against the intrusion. "Stay out of this, Cassian. This is an internal Silvercrest matter. She’s an enrolled tracker under my jurisdiction."

"She’s wearing iron thread," Cassian replied, his slate-gray eyes cold and immovable. "Which makes her mine to protect."

"She’s reacting out of spite!" Nolan snapped, looking past Cassian to glare at me. "She belongs here! She’s been in my den, working under my command for years!"

Cassian’s expression didn't shift by a fraction of an inch. His voice was absolute, cutting through Nolan’s bluster like a winter blade.

"You rejected her," Cassian said. "You don't get to veto who chooses her."

Nolan’s fists clenched at his sides, his knuckles turning stark white. He looked at the four Ravenscar wolves flanking me, then back at the black ribbon tied around my wrist. The courtyard outside was still full of people; a physical brawl in the corridor would shatter what remained of his dignified Alpha persona.

"You're making a mistake, Wren," Nolan ground out through gritted teeth. "A fatal one."

"Step back, Vance," Ronan rumbled from the side, shifting his weight forward.

Nolan took one slow, venomous look at me before turning on his heel and stalking back toward the main hall.

***

The team locker rooms were dead quiet when I walked in fifteen minutes later.

I had already packed my cold-weather gear, my compass, and my climbing picks into a single duffel bag. I was reaching up to pull down my spare boots when the locker room door swung open.

Brielle walked in, her silver vanguard band gleaming on her upper arm. She had already changed into her training leathers, looking pristine and untouchable.

She stopped by the wooden bench, crossing her arms.

"You’re really going through with this little rebellion, aren't you?" she asked, her voice carrying that practiced, gentle condescension she always reserved for me.

I pulled my boots down and stuffed them into the bag. "I’m clearing my gear."

"Wren, be serious," Brielle sighed, stepping closer. "You made your point in the courtyard. Everyone saw you throw your fit. But this is the Moon Hunt. It’s not a game. Nolan was only trying to keep you safe. You can't survive the summit scramble, and you know it."

I pulled the zipper of my duffel shut and straightened up. "Is there something you need, Brielle?"

Brielle hesitated, her mask slipping for a fraction of a second. She glanced at my pack.

"The northern approach," she said, pitching her voice low and reasonable. "The map Nolan had on stage shows the old switchback, but the snowmelt this spring makes that pass too risky for a full vanguard run. Nolan said you found a secondary cutoff along the eastern spine."

A bitter laugh almost escaped my throat. "He told you to come get it?"

"We're sisters, Wren," Brielle said smoothly, reaching out to touch my arm. "A competition shouldn't tear our family apart. If Silvercrest wins, our family’s standing rises. Just sketch out the bypass. You don't need it anyway—Ravenscar runs the western gorges, not the north face."

I stepped back, letting her hand fall into empty air.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out the heavy brass key to my Silvercrest locker, and dropped it into her open hand. The metal clinked sharply against her skin.

"There's your locker key," I said. "Anything in the official Silvercrest records is yours to use."

Brielle stared at the brass key, her eyes narrowing. "Wren, the official records are six months out of date. The frost heave altered the lower gorge. Where are your latest notes?"

"They’re leaving with me."

"You're sabotaging your own pack!" Her voice rose, losing its sweet veneer. "You know I can't read the shifting ice without those baseline markers! If we hit a deadfall—"

"Then I guess you shouldn't have taken the navigator's spot," I said coldly.

I hauled my duffel over my shoulder, grabbed my satchel, and walked past her toward the exit.

"Wren!" Brielle called after me, her voice sharp with panic and anger. "You come back here!"

I didn't turn around.

The heavy iron doors of the training compound yielded beneath my hand, letting in the biting mountain wind. Outside, the black transport belonging to Ravenscar waited at the edge of the gravel drive, its engine rumbling low in the quiet evening. Cassian stood by the open passenger door, waiting.

As I reached the foot of the stone steps, my phone buzzed in my coat pocket.

I pulled it out.

The screen lit up with a single message from Nolan.

*You'll come back before the Hunt starts.*

I stared at the words, feeling the last lingering thread of an old, foolish loyalty snap clean in two.

Without typing a word, I locked the screen, slid the phone into my pocket, and walked toward the waiting wolves in black.

The workshop beneath the Ravenscar compound smelled of iron filings, boot grease, and cold stone.

Unlike the polished cedar lockers at Silvercrest, this space was purely functional. Heavy timber benches lined the perimeter, equipped with vise grips, tension cables, and rows of black tactical gear.

Ronan stood over my opened duffel, sorting through the climbing equipment with practiced efficiency. He tested the spring on each cam, weighed the ice pitons in his massive calloused palm, and tossed aside anything that didn't meet Ravenscar standards. Asher leaned against a tool chest, tossing a whetstone between his hands, while Elias methodically oiled the latches on a pair of snowshoes.

Cassian stood near the door, his dark coat unbuttoned, watching in silence.

"Most of this is standard Silvercrest issue," Ronan muttered, his low voice vibrating in his chest. "Lightweight, decent alloy, but flimsy in a crosswind."

He unbuckled the small canvas repair roll I had kept tucked at the bottom of the bag. Inside was an older harness—the dark gray nylon webbing I had used during my solitary mapping treks across the northern ridges.

Ronan pulled it out by the waist loop, letting the leg straps dangle. He ran two fingers down the left shoulder support, then stopped abruptly.

His jaw set. The easy rhythm of his inspection vanished.

"Asher," Ronan said, his voice dropping an octave. "Look at this."

Asher caught his whetstone, pushed off the tool chest, and walked over. Elias paused his work, his sharp eyes flicking toward the bench.

Ronan stretched the load-bearing strap over the edge of the wood, angling it beneath the overhead work lamp.

"What is it?" I asked, stepping closer.

"Come see for yourself," Ronan said, stepping aside just enough to let me look.

The heavy nylon weave was split almost three-quarters of the way through, right where the strap met the primary chest carabiner. But the threads weren't frayed from friction against granite. They weren't torn by jagged ice or worn down by sunrot.

The incision was flat, precise, and completely clean.

"A sharp blade," Asher said quietly, his lazy smirk disappearing. "Scored deep enough to hold together while you put it on, but thin enough that fifty pounds of drop weight would shear it clean off."

My stomach turned to ice.

A sudden rush of memories hit me, sharp and disjointed.

The night before the Moon Hunt announcement. It had been past eleven, long after curfew. I had gone down to the Silvercrest gear bay to check the tension on my crampons. When the heavy door creaked open, someone had been standing near my locker in the shadows.

Brielle.

She had jerked her hand back from my bench, startled, hiding something behind her thigh. When she saw it was me, her easy, condescending smile had returned instantly. She claimed she had lost an earring during evening drills and wandered down to look for it. I had been exhausted, my mind consumed with the promise Nolan had whispered to me in the woods, so I let it go.

The next morning, when I threw my kit together before dawn, the strap had felt loose. Seeing the split threads in the dim light, I had assumed the webbing had finally rotted from months of frost damage. In a rush to make roll call, I shoved it into my repair pouch, pulled a backup harness from the rack, and never thought about it again.

Until now.

If I had worn that harness onto the frost cliffs—if I had taken a lead fall on the north shelf—the strap would have snapped instantly. I would have dropped three hundred feet onto the scree.

The workshop went dead quiet.

Ronan laid the harness flat on the bench, his knuckles white against the dark timber. Asher was staring at me, his eyes dark with predatory intent. Elias crossed his arms, his mouth set in a thin, hard line.

None of them moved to grab their weapons. None of them barked out orders or demanded that I march back to Silvercrest to confront the council.

Cassian stepped forward, his boots clicking softly against the flagstones. He stopped across the table from me, looking down at the severed nylon, then up into my eyes.

"You knew the strap was damaged," Cassian said, his voice entirely level.

"I thought it was worn out," I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper. "I found it split the morning of the roster announcement. I grabbed a spare and threw this in the repair kit."

"Who was near your locker?" Ronan growled, his chest rumbling.

"Ronan," Cassian said sharply.

The giant warrior fell silent, though the tension vibrating off his shoulders remained palpable.

Cassian kept his gaze locked on mine. There was no pity in his slate-gray eyes, nor the suffocating control Nolan had always exerted over my choices.

"We're not going to drag you to the elders," Cassian said calmly. "And we're not going to tell you how to play this. It's your gear. It was your life on the line. What do you want to do with it?"

It was the first time an Alpha had ever asked for my decision instead of issuing an order.

I stared at the clean cut in the webbing. My heart was pounding, but beneath the fear was a cold, sharp anger that cleared away the last remnants of my hesitation.

"I need to know something first," I said.

Cassian gave a single, slow nod. "Take your time."

I stepped away from the bench, pulling my phone from my coat pocket. My thumbs were steady as I tapped open the message thread with Nolan. His last message—*You'll come back before the Hunt starts*—still glared back at me from the screen.

I typed out a single line:

*Do you remember Brielle being down in the gear bay the night before the announcement?*

I hit send.

I set the phone on the edge of a nearby shelf and waited. Asher leaned back against the counter, watching me with quiet curiosity. Ronan stood guard by the bench, while Elias returned to his snowshoes, working with deliberate, quiet focus.

Less than twenty seconds passed before the screen lit up.

A single notification popped up.

Nolan’s reply:

*Don't turn an old strap into an accusation.*

The air seemed to leave my lungs in a sharp gasp.

I hadn't mentioned a strap.

I hadn't mentioned damage, a knife, or the repair kit. I had only asked if he remembered Brielle being in the gear bay.

He knew.

He had known about the severed strap before I ever tied the black iron ribbon around my wrist. Whether Brielle had told him afterward or he had seen the cut himself, he hadn't warned me. He hadn't pulled her from the roster for endangering a packmate. He had simply buried it, protected his Alpha-born female, and used the incident to clear my name from the mountain run entirely.

A bitter, quiet sound escaped my throat.

Nolan hadn't just replaced me for political advantage. He had shielded the person who tried to break my neck.

"Wren?" Asher asked softly, stepping half a pace closer. "What did he say?"

I didn't answer. I locked the screen, slid the phone back into my pocket, and walked over to the wooden bench.

Without a word, I grabbed the severed harness, rolled it up tight, and shoved it deep into the dark interior of my pack, pulling the zipper shut with a sharp, decisive rasp.

I looked up at the four wolves watching me.

"They have my old map," I said, my voice steady, carrying clearly across the quiet room. "They have my trail markers, my elevation notes, and the switchbacks I charted over the last two years."

Cassian’s eyes sharpened. "And?"

"And they think that's the only way up the mountain," I said. "They're expecting me to fight them for the north shelf. They're expecting us to follow the routes they stole."

A slow, vicious smile spread across Asher's face. Ronan let out a low rumble of approval from deep in his throat.

I met Cassian’s gaze, letting the black band around my wrist catch the harsh workshop light.

"Be ready before dawn," I said. "I'm drawing a new line. One they've never seen."

Dawn broke over the western peaks like an open wound, spilling cold gray light across the jagged slate.

The frost was sharp enough to bite through wool. At the base of the lower scree valley, Cassian unrolled a slate-backed tactical grid, pointing a gloved finger along the high spine of the ridge.

"We take the high spine," Cassian said, his breath pluming in the icy air. "It's thirty percent longer, but the foundation is solid granite. Zero risk of slide."

Ronan leaned against his iron-studded spear, his breath blowing out in a dismissive snort. His yellow eyes shifted toward me, heavy with blunt skepticism.

"The high spine adds an hour we don't have on race day," Ronan rumbled. "The valley floor is the straight shot, but it's pure scree and loose shale. What do you say, Little Bird? Can you actually read this basin without Nolan’s stolen maps to hold your hand, or are we hauling dead weight?"

Asher chuckled quietly from a boulder, but his eyes were sharp, watching to see how I would answer. Elias checked his wrist compass in silence, waiting.

I didn't flinch. I walked past Ronan, stepping into the mouth of the gorge where the loose gravel began.

I knelt, stripping my glove off to press my bare palm against the snowpack.

"The high spine is dead," I said, standing up.

Ronan raised a brow. "Excuse me?"

"Feel the downdraft," I said, pointing toward the eastern bowl. "The wind is curving off the upper lip. That means the morning sun is warming the cornice above the high spine first. In thirty minutes, that solid granite will be an ice chute. You'll lose footing before you hit the second saddle."

Cassian’s gray eyes narrowed, tracking the wind ribboning off the upper edge. He said nothing, listening.

I turned back to the scree valley. "The valley floor looks like shifting shale, but look at the lichen line along the western wall. That rock face leans three degrees inward. It blocked last night’s frost, keeping the under-bed dry. If we skirt the shadow line three paces off the wall, the shale is packed solid over limestone."

"And the standard trail cairns?" Elias asked, speaking for the first time. He pointed to the stacked stones marking the pack route sixty yards out in the center of the valley.

"Forget the cairns," I said, pulling my glove back on and tightening the strap. "Nolan stacked those two years ago based on dry-season runs. If you step there today, the snowmelt beneath will drop you knee-deep in mud. Leave the marked line. Follow my boots."

Silence settled over the group.

Four towering Alphas, seasoned killers who answered to no one outside their bloodline, stared down into the basin. They were being asked to abandon every traditional Silvercrest route marker and put their full training pace behind an Omega.

Ronan looked at Cassian.

Cassian rolled up his slate grid with a crisp snap. He looked at me, his gaze dark and steady.

"Call the pace," Cassian ordered.

I took off.

I didn't sprint, but I hit a fast, low-impact stride, planting each boot precisely along the jagged shadow line of the western rock face. My senses flared open. I tracked the give of the gravel beneath my soles, the crisp slap of the wind against my cheek, and the hollow ring of limestone shelves hiding under the frost.

Behind me, four pairs of heavy boots hammered into the earth.

They weren't trailing behind to watch me stumble. They were matching my cadence stride for stride, committing their full momentum to the line I cut. If I misjudged a step, Ronan’s massive frame would plow into unstable shale, bringing down a rockslide that would bury the entire squad.

The pressure hummed in my blood, but my mind was crystal clear.

*Two paces left. Hard granite beneath the dust.*

*Cut sharp right around the deadfall. The shale here is frozen solid.*

We flew through the treacherous gorge, bypassing two shifting fault lines that would have swallowed an unguided runner whole. When the mouth of the valley opened into the high pine plateau—our designated training point—I skidded to a halt on the firm gravel.

The four wolves pulled up behind me, breathing hard, their body heat radiating against the mountain chill.

Elias unclipped the timer from his chest harness. He tapped the glass, his brow furrowing as he stared at the readout.

"Well?" Ronan panted, hands on his hips.

"Forty minutes," Elias said, looking up from the dial. "We beat our previous personal best through this sector by forty-two minutes."

Ronan froze. He stared back down into the jagged expanse of the scree valley, then turned his gaze to me. The taunting smirk was completely gone from his broad face. He rubbed the back of his neck, letting out a low breath.

"Damn," Ronan muttered, giving me a short, reluctant nod. "Guess the little wolf has teeth after all."

Asher grinned, tapping the pommel of his blade against his thigh. "Told you she wasn't guessing."

Cassian didn't offer empty praise. He walked up beside me, his shoulder brushing mine, his presence solid and grounding. "Good read," he said simply.

We took five minutes to take on water before beginning our descent along the northern boundary path that flanked the neutral trial grounds.

The morning mist had begun to burn off, revealing the pale dirt road that linked the mountain trails back to the Silvercrest perimeter.

Rounding a bend near the timberline, our path collided directly with another team.

Silvercrest colors.

Nolan stood at the head of the trail, clad in polished hunting leathers, his vanguard scroll tucked into his chest strap. Beside him walked Brielle, looking radiant in a white fur-lined mantle, with Garrett Shaw and two other Silvercrest fighters flanking them.

Both groups stopped ten paces apart.

Nolan’s amber eyes flicked over the five of us, taking in the dust on our boots and the sweat cooling on my brow. A dismissive smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Out early, Vance?" Cassian asked, his voice smooth and lethally calm.

"Scouting the lower boundaries," Nolan replied, ignoring Cassian to lock his eyes straight onto me. His gaze traced the black iron ribbon around my wrist before settling on my face. "I see you made it through the scree valley, Wren. Though taking the shadow trail along the western wall is hardly revolutionary. You just swapped the entry point of the route I laid out last spring."

Brielle smiled faintly, adjusting her silver armband. "It’s a safe little shortcut, Wren. I'm glad you're staying within your comfort zone."

The arrogance rolled off them in waves. Nolan truly believed my skill was nothing more than a few pre-packaged tricks he had taught me to memorize.

I took half a step forward, looking Nolan dead in the eye.

"You think that was your route?" I asked quietly.

"I know my own territory," Nolan said, folding his arms over his broad chest. "You're just running the perimeter of the map I hold in my pack. You can wear their black cloth, but you're still relying on my foundation."

I didn't waste breath arguing.

Instead, I looked up at the ridge above us. A dense spine of young pine and sheer drop-offs ran parallel to the main road, choked with thick brush and sharp granite shelves that no sane runner would attempt without a surveyed trail.

"Cassian," I said, keeping my eyes fixed on Nolan. "Take the timberline spine."

Brielle let out a soft laugh. "The timberline? There's no path up there, Wren. It’s an unbroken deadfall. You'll break your neck."

"Follow my footsteps," I told my team.

Without waiting for permission, I pivoted on my heel and leaped onto the jagged rock shelf above the road.

I didn't need a map. The mountain wasn't ink on dead paper; it was alive, and I knew how it breathed. I caught an exposed root with one boot, vaulted over a jagged outcrop of slate, and threaded through a hairline gap in the dense timber where the earth was naturally terraced by game trails.

Behind me, Cassian, Ronan, Elias, and Asher surged up the bank without a fraction of a second’s hesitation. They didn't question the line. They didn't pause to scout the rocks. They moved as one body, their trust absolute.

"Wren, wait!" Nolan’s voice snapped from below, sudden alarm breaking through his composure. "That spine drops into a blind crevasse!"

He tried to scramble up the bank to intercept us, but by the time his boots hit the lower ledge, we were already twenty yards ahead, flowing through the brush like shadows.

I picked the line on the fly—leaping between stable moss beds, skirting the rotting deadfalls by scent alone, and cutting directly across the mountain's natural fault lines. What Nolan thought was an impassable wall was an open highway to anyone who truly understood the terrain.

Within ninety seconds, we cleared the dense timber and vaulted down the final rocky descent, landing cleanly on the gravel courtyard of the shared boundary post.

We were five minutes ahead of Silvercrest’s clear-cut road pace.

Nolan and his team sprinted around the bend moments later, chest heaving, his immaculate leathers speckled with dust. He skidded to a halt, staring at the five of us standing completely composed by the boundary marker.

Brielle caught up a second later, her hair disheveled, staring at me as if she were seeing a ghost. She clutched the brass-fitted map cylinder at her hip, but her fingers were trembling.

She had the parchment. But she couldn't read the mountain.

Cassian stepped forward. He reached into his coat and pulled out Ravenscar’s primary route slate—a heavy, iron-bound tablet that dictated the team's race strategy, bearing the dark seal of his house.

He didn't look at Nolan. He didn't look at Brielle.

Cassian turned to me, offering the master slate with both hands.

"You lead," Cassian said, his voice ringing like an iron bell through the quiet clearing. "We follow."

I reached out and closed my fingers around the cold iron edges of the slate.

Across the gravel, Nolan’s face drained of color.

His jaw fell slack, the smug arrogance vanishing from his eyes, replaced by a sudden, sickening dread.

For two years, he had convinced himself that he was the grand architect of Silvercrest's victories and I was merely the girl holding the ink. But as he watched Ravenscar hand their entire race into my hands, the brutal truth finally crushed his pride.

He hadn't just discarded an Omega.

He had handed his rivals the only mind capable of conquering the mountain.