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.

Six weeks of ice, sweat, and bruised shins had stripped away every lingering illusion about the four wolves running beside me.

They weren't Nolan. They didn't operate on quiet control or unspoken debts.

Ronan would squint at the hairline fractures across an icy shelf, his heavy brow furrowing in deep suspicion. "That crust won't take two hundred pounds," he would rumble, challenging the angle.

"The limestone underneath holds dry," I would tell him.

He would grumble, spit into the snow, and then plant his boot exactly where I told him to, throwing his full weight behind my lead without another word.

Elias was different. Methodical and lethal, he treated physical boundaries like tripwires. Whenever my crampons slipped or my harness needed tensioning, his hands would hover two inches off my gear. "Wren, may I adjust your chest clasp?" he would ask, waiting for my nod before his fingers touched the webbing.

Asher read the air. Twice a week, the unsevered bond in my chest would flare with a hollow, burning ache—Nolan’s lingering phantom tug trying to drag my pulse toward Silvercrest territory. Whenever it happened, my scent inevitably shifted, bitter and sharp with stress. Asher never probed. He never gave the pain a name or made me explain it. He would simply step up beside me, press a warm metal flask of sweetened tea into my gloved hand, and toss a dry joke at Ronan until the tightness in my ribs faded.

And then there was Cassian.

The Alpha of Ravenscar didn't micromanage. When we reached split ridges where the maps went blind, he wouldn't pull rank or offer a vote. He would stop, step back, and look straight at me.

"Your call, Wren."

He had given me the wheel, and in six weeks, I hadn't steered them into a single crevasse.

The joint pre-race trial run was our first public outing as a registered squad.

The neutral lower basin was packed with scouts, elders, and competing squads testing their equipment. The moment Ravenscar hit the gravel staging track, Silvercrest appeared on our heels.

Nolan had positioned his squad five paces behind us, matching our rhythm step for step. Brielle ran just off his shoulder, her silver armband gleaming under the pale morning sun. Every time I changed our team's cadence, Nolan shifted his vanguard to shadow us, turning a routine warm-up into a stifling parade.

When we pulled up at the perimeter turnaround, Nolan brought his team to an abrupt halt right beside ours.

Spectators drifted toward the fence line, sensing the friction. Nolan wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, projecting his voice so it carried clearly across the assembled packs.

"Look at them," Nolan said, a dismissive smirk touching his lips as he glanced at the scouts along the rail. "Four apex Alphas playing nursemaid. You're spoiling an Omega, Cassian. Wrapping her in iron thread won't stop her from breaking the first time the high ice cracks."

Brielle let out a quiet, delicate laugh, shaking her head. "It's just dangerous, Nolan. They're indulging a tantrum."

Ronan’s jaw hardened, his fist tightening around his trekking staff until the wood creaked. Asher took a slow step forward, the easy humor vanishing from his eyes.

I raised my open hand.

None of them moved. The four Alphas froze on my signal, holding their line.

I didn't look at Nolan. I didn't dignify the taunt with a single word. Words on the flats meant nothing; the mountain only cared about blood and balance.

"Cassian," I said evenly. "Limestone chute. Tight formation."

"On you," Cassian replied.

I pivoted on the balls of my feet and broke into a dead sprint toward the narrow southern gully.

Nolan’s mocking laugh cut short behind us. "Keep on them!" he barked to his team. "Don't let them take the inside turn!"

Silvercrest surged forward, trying to pin us against the gravel bank. But Nolan only knew the basin from the flat map. He didn't know that fifteen yards into the chute, the drainage ditch dropped two feet beneath a blind lip of shale, coated in morning run-off.

I hit the lip, planted my left heel into the single dry outcrop of bedrock, and leaped cleanly across the churned mud.

"Bank right, three paces!" I called over my shoulder.

Cassian cleared the jump in my exact footprint. Ronan’s massive frame vaulted the gap without shaking the stone. Elias and Asher flowed through like smoke, cutting tight along the hard rock wall.

Behind us came the heavy, chaotic crunch of sliding gravel.

Nolan tried to lead his squad through on brute speed. Brielle’s boot caught the slick shale, and she went down hard on one knee with a sharp cry. Garrett Shaw collided with her shoulder, stumbling into the mud. Nolan had to slide sideways to keep from trampling his own vanguard, his boots digging into the muck as his momentum collapsed into a tangled heap.

By the time Nolan hauled Brielle to her feet, Ravenscar was fifty yards clear, crossing the boundary line in perfect formation.

I didn't turn back to look at his humiliated face. The silence from the spectators said everything.

***

The horn for Stage One blew three days later, echoing off the iron peaks like a war cry.

The real mountain was nothing like the trial grounds. Within the first two hours of the ascent, the temperature plummeted. The lower pine forests gave way to brutal, vertical shelves of granite dusted with wind-scoured ice.

And Silvercrest was right behind us.

Nolan had abandoned his own scouting split, locking his squad onto our tail. He was using our draft, letting me read the terrain while his vanguard conserved energy, waiting to blow past us the second we hit the first plateau.

I watched the cloud line descending from the high ridge. The sky had turned the color of bruised slate.

"They're crowding the primary route," Elias warned, checking the rear. "Fifty paces."

"They want to force an error," Ronan growled, his breathing heavy under the load of his pack.

I glanced up at the jagged western tooth towering above us. A narrow, unprotected shelf skirted the upper wall—the alternate high-line route I had mapped during my solo winters. It bypassed the congested gorge, but it was brutal, exposed, and entirely unvetted by council standards.

"We're taking the high line," I commanded.

Cassian glanced at the sheer granite rise, then back at me. "Now? We're three hours ahead of the scheduled ridge climb."

"The clouds are dropping too fast," I said, pointing toward the swirling gray vortex above the peak. "The main gorge will funnel the wind into an air cannon before we clear the narrows. We burn the alternate line now, or we get pinned by Silvercrest in a dead end."

"Lead," Cassian said instantly.

We cut hard left, leaving the beaten trail.

Silvercrest hesitated for ten seconds before Nolan signaled his team to follow, scrambling up the steep scree to keep us in sight.

Then the mountain broke.

The gale hit us like a solid wall of iron and snow. Within five minutes, the light died, swallowed by a screaming whiteout that erased the ridge ahead and obliterated our footprints behind. The wind shrieked through the stone teeth, tearing the breath from our lungs.

We were traversing a forty-degree icy slope when the disaster struck.

The heavy supply sled—carrying our emergency rations, medical kits, and dry shelter canvas—hit a submerged ice pocket. The steel runner snapped with a sickening metallic crack.

"Hold the line!" Elias roared, throwing his full weight onto the tow rope.

Ronan lunged forward, his boots digging into the crust, veins bulging in his neck as he grabbed the nylon tether.

A savage gust ripped down the couloir, blowing ninety miles an hour. The sled twisted violently, sliding sideways over the sheer edge of the drop-off.

"Let it go!" I screamed through the howling wind. "Ronan, drop it!"

Cassian’s knife flashed in the blinding storm. With a clean, vicious swipe, he severed the tension cord just as Ronan was dragged toward the rim.

The supply sled flipped into empty space, tumbling down a five-hundred-foot ravine before shattering against the rocks below.

Silence fell between our gasping breaths, broken only by the roar of the blizzard.

We were stranded on an open cliff face. No tents. No heavy blankets. No extra fuel.

"Stage checkpoint is four miles up," Ronan panted, ice encrusting his beard, his hands trembling with adrenaline. "If we push the pace without the sled, we can still place in the top three for the leg."

"We push into the upper ridge without shelter, we freeze before midnight," Asher shouted over the gale, shielding his face. "The temperature is dropping ten degrees an hour."

They all turned to me.

The choice pressed against my chest like a boulder. The Moon Hunt was about glory, bloodlines, and claiming the mountain. Silvercrest was right behind us; if we turned off the stage path, we gave up our position. We gave up the lead I had fought six weeks to build.

Nolan’s voice from the courtyard echoed in my mind: *No Alpha team can afford to carry an Omega through the mountains.*

I looked at Ronan’s bloodied knuckles, at Elias shivering against the gale, at Asher’s narrowed eyes, and at Cassian, waiting for my order.

"To hell with the ranking," I said, my voice cutting through the roar of the storm.

Cassian’s eyes flared in the whiteout.

"Two miles west," I commanded, pointing down toward a jagged depression in the timber basin. "There’s an abandoned forestry station tucked under the granite lip. It’s off the race corridor, but the walls are stone and the timber roof will hold. We don't freeze for a plastic ribbon. We move to the station. Now!"

None of them argued. None of them questioned why their Omega was ordering a retreat from the race line.

"You heard her!" Cassian bellowed into the wind. "Pack tight! Follow Wren!"

I turned, digging my picks into the ice, forging a descent through the blinding snow toward the only shelter that could keep us alive.

Through a sudden tear in the swirling whiteout, I glanced back up the slope.

Five silhouettes emerged through the storm.

Nolan’s team had reached the high traverse, their white-and-silver jackets battered by the gale. Nolan stopped at the edge of the shelf where our sled had fallen. He saw our tracks veering off the official stage line, cutting straight toward the forbidden timber basin.

Instead of pushing forward toward the summit checkpoint to claim the lead, Nolan’s silhouette froze.

He raised his arm, barking an order into the wind.

Silvercrest pivoted. Abandoning the race path, Nolan led his squad down the slope, plunging through the blizzard directly after us.