The old crossing was a place the territory had forgotten on purpose.
A collapsed stone bridge over a dead river, deep in the no-wolf's-land between three borders, where smugglers and rogues had slipped between packs for a hundred years. Roan's ground. The place he'd told me about himself, weeks ago in the dark, never dreaming I'd remember it as anything but a rogue's boast.
We came on foot the last mile, Cain and I ahead, a handful of Ironfang's best behind, the bond between us drawn silent and tight. Dawn was still an hour off. And in the ruins of the bridge, by the grey light of a single lantern, we found them.
Celeste knelt at the water's edge, wrists bound, her arm still curved protectively under her belly. And Roan stood over her, the true line's proof in a satchel across his back,
