Liora attempted to maintain her place, to ensure the pack functioned. She taught apprentices to read tracks in winter crust and to know the scents that came before storms. She oversaw patrol rotations and kept supplies in check. It was work, steady and necessary, and she hoped it might steady her too. But the world around her had tilted toward worship. Her practical work was now background noise beneath the songs.
At the council, leaders arrived with offerings and with eyes trained more on Vanya's reactions than on Liora's advice. When a nearby tribe petitioned for permission to pass through their lands, Gonzalo leaned more heavily on Vanya's counsel than on Liora's experience. He discussed honor and alliance with an eye toward the political capital Vanya's return would bring. Each decision made without her left a tiny erosion in what she had been.
She did not rage publicly. She felt a cold, burning thing inside that was sharper than anger and lonelier than grief. She watched the worship, the way even simple folk now hinted at deference when they spoke to Vanya. Women who had once confided in Liora kissed Vanya's hand and asked for blessings. Children climbed into Vanya's lap to hear old tales. The pack gave up a piece of itself willingly, like a lover offering a ring.
It made her hollow in a new way. The dagger at her hip was an old promise she could still trust. Yet that blade had never promised her belonging. It promised action; it promised an answer when there was no other. Now there were answers everywhere—rituals, songs, a crowned face and her answers mattered less.
On the seventh night after the crowning, the moon hung swollen and white. Torches lined the pathways and a single clear bell rang out as priests called for silence. The crowd was denser than any night she had seen. Vanya stood upon the raised stone, circlet shining, robes catching the lamplight. Gonzalo stood beside her and, for a heartbeat, Liora saw the old warmth that had drawn her, flicker and then fold into statecraft.
She withdrew to the outer wall where the air tasted of smoke and bread and incense. She watched the crowd below—hands raised, voices lifted in unison and felt the steady erasure of herself. It was not a dramatic exile. It was made of small, precise erasures: invitations forgotten, mentions softened, decisions ceded.
From a shadowed hedgerow near the northern end, Liora noticed movement that did not belong to the worship. Men slipped along the edges, cloaks feathering the ground, faces half-hidden in hoods. She did not have to identify them; her bones named them with a hunter's certainty—rogues. Their leader moved with the ease of someone who had turned theft into ritual. He tested the wall, checked the guards' pattern, counted the beats of the drums like a metronome.
They had chosen wisely. Devotion centralized attention; devotion thinned defenses. No one watched the perimeters with the same intensity they watched the altar. Gold and offerings were stacked near the raised stone; trays of delicate things sat unattended at a table of presents. The rogues' eyes gleamed with predatory light.
Liora moved silent as breath and slipped along the parapet. Her training murmured options: signal the guards, sound the alarm, throw a torch to break the spell. She imagined the scene if she took action—Gonzalo calling her name in startled gratitude, Vanya turning with surprise, faces finally remembering the woman who had been the pack's hand in darker hours. For a moment her chest warmed with a private hope.
But a darker hope took root too. If she raised her voice now, the crowd would turn, yes, but perhaps the crowd would also see that she had been sidelined—an inconvenient truth in the face of miracle. She feared their gratitude might be half-hearted. She feared being seen only as the woman who had tried to end Vanya once, a stain in the memory of their blessing.
She hesitated. In that fraction of time small things happened. The rogue leader threw a rope, the first thief scaled the wall, and a second slipped past a leaning guard. Two moved toward the table of offerings, fingers seeking coin, while another approached the altar where Vanya blessed a child.
Liora's lungs tightened. The dagger at her hip vibrated as if recognizing imminent need. Her body wanted to spring, to taste the salvation of being necessary again. She stilled, rooted by the complexity of being both betrayed and desperate for belonging.
She thought of the long winter when she and Gonzalo had sat on these same stones and made small bargains with fate. He had been lighter then, laughter threaded through his plans; they had drafted watch rotations by lamplight and stitched contingency into their vows. Those bargains were the backbone of the pack, practical as rope and as necessary. She had thought their tether unbreakable.
Nyssa's image surfaced like smoke. The healer who had soothed wounds and braided herbs into medicine now moved near the altar, fingers folded, cheeks hollowed by sleepless nights. Had Nyssa always been keeping such delicate secrets? Liora's certainty curdled. Trust unraveled at the edges, leaving questions sharp enough to cut.
The crowd moved in predictable patterns, rituals tightening like a net. Women exchanged glances that carried questions masked as blessings. Men who once followed Liora into darknessed raids now smiled with the reverent affection reserved for prophets. Children reached out for Vanya's cloak with ungainly fingers, believing what they were taught by these very acts of devotion.
Liora bent to study the offerings with a scholar's careful eye: coins pressed flat, ribbons tied with careful knots, scent jars unopened for ceremony. She noted who had given what, how those choices reflected alliances and fears. A baker had left her best loaves, a smith gave a small iron ring. Each offering was a statement, and the pile of things at Vanya's feet formed a map of the pack's new loyalties.
Overhead, the moon watched, pale and impartial. Torches flickered like a congregation of small suns. The air was dense with smoke and spices, with the sticky scent of sweetmeats. The drums set a steady pulse that pushed through the crowd like tide, and the voices rose in layered chants that made the stones hum.
In the hedge at the northern edge, the rogues crouched. Their leader's eyes were the color of cold coal, and he smiled with a confidence born of nights like this. He had moved through smaller towns and temple fairs like this before—learning how devotion could be a curtain for theft. He watched the guards' slouch, the way tired men rested their weight on spears, the lull of attention falling away from the walls.
Liora saw it with a hunter's clarity. The plan was simple: scale the wall, move to the offerings, be gone before the crowd could remember anything but the miracle. She pictured the rogue leader drawing fingers across a line of coins, the soft gleam of jewels slipping into rough hands.
She imagined a scene where she intervened—torch raised, shout thrown like a stone. Gonzalo would look up from his statecraft; Vanya would be startled; the crowd's gaze would slide toward her; for an instant the stronghold would become a stage where she could act, and perhaps they would remember her with gratitude. The fantasy warmed something small inside her.
Yet doubt gnawed. If she acted, who would the pack see first—the woman who had saved them or the woman who had once tried to end Vanya? Would old accusations whisper and dampen any thanks? Her hesitation was not cowardice so much as arithmetic: the cost of being seen might outweigh the relief.
The leader made his move. A rope traced up the wall, hands found purchase, and the music thinned to a dangerous silence. In a heartbeat the air changed; the night bent forward like a listening thing. The first man slipped behind a brazier. The second reached toward the offerings. And then, breaking the tautness of the world, a single scream ripped through the courtyard.
The scream cut across the courtyard and halted a hundred throats.
It was close, raw, immediate.
Rogues attack!