Cole had been to the tributary at night before.
He had walked every inch of this territory in the dark more times than he had walked it in daylight. He knew where the ground changed quality, where the water's sound changed pitch, where the specific darkness between the trees was navigable and where it was not. He had mapped it in his head with the same thoroughness he mapped everything that mattered.
He went first.
That was the arrangement — Cole first, Marcus flanking east, Roan flanking west. Darius and I in the center, because the message had come to us, and because whoever was at the tributary had sent it to us, and because walking toward an unknown with the Alpha King and the Luna was either the statement of strength it was intended to be or an enormous tactical error.
We were gam
