15. Gracie
Gracie
I was grateful for the time I’d taken with my mates because the next morning, we left before the sun was anywhere close to up.
The four of us and six soldiers from various territories slipped out through a side gate, away from the noise of the convoy still loading up in the walls of the capitol grounds.
Basir led without hesitation, easily finding a path hidden among shrubbery. It was one of the older Cinder Ring supply routes, and according to him, it would cut straight through the territories.
It would let us get eyes on things before Ivan caught wind of the larger force approaching. It also meant we wouldn’t be taken off guard.
“You’ve taken this path before?” I asked, falling into step beside him.
“Ran it,” he admitted. “Usually meeting someone at the border for a hand-off.”
Once we cleared the last of the city’s outer fencing, I could feel Basir relax, and Ravik gave the signal. One by one, my mates and I shifted. Thornar bopped me on the nose, and I promised myself I would try to keep pace with him, even if just as a way to entertain myself and to pass the time.
“You four shift while they walk. You’ll move faster, quieter, and see trouble before it finds the soldiers.” Bram had explained back in the capitol when he made the suggestion. “They’ll hold the supply and weapons.”
Once we shifted, the soldiers fell into a loose formation around us, quiet and quick on foot, weapons secured but ready, while my wolf surged forward, eager and glad for the open ground.
We ran for most of that first day, breaking only twice—once for water, once when Ravik went ahead to scout a fork in the route before pushing further north.
By the time the light started fading, exhaustion had settled deep into my legs, my wolf’s earlier eagerness worn down to fatigue.
I didn’t think I’d spent that long in shifted form in over a decade, if ever.
We made camp in a shallow ravine that offered enough cover to risk a small, smokeless fire.
The soldiers split into watch rotations without needing to be told; two would be awake at all times while the rest of us tried to rest. I shifted back long enough to eat something and drink, wrapped in a blanket between Thornar and Basir on the cold, hard ground.
“Another full day like this,” Ravik said before we fell asleep. “Then we’ll have eyes on Cold Moon Pack territory.”
Sleep came in short, uneasy stretches. My wolf paced at the edge of every dream, restless. Even with our muscles aching from the day’s exertion, she already knew what was waiting for us and wanted to be ready for it. We were moving again before the sun fully cleared the horizon.
I made a point of not saying I was tired or sore, but I knew my mates could tell because we stopped more the second day. Our pace was slightly slower, giving me a chance to look around. The terrain had already begun to shift, and by midmorning the change was impossible to ignore.
Grimfur Skulk’s rust and smog had given way entirely to farmland, scattered with broken fences and fields choked with weeds where crops should have been. My wolf couldn’t smell anything alive for miles. No livestock, no crops, just dirt and empty buildings along our path.
Then even that disappeared.
The trees thinned to nothing. The birds stopped first, then the insects, until the only sound left was the soft thudding of paws and boots against the ground. The earth was hard and cracked, fissures running through it like the land itself had been drained dry and left to bake under the sun.
My wolf slowed without meaning to.
She knew this ground, and so did I. Ahead, even the brown soil turned ashy and gray. No one needed to tell me we were approaching Cold Moon Pack territory.
I could feel it.
“We need to gain a vantage point,” Basir said.
The ten of us stood at one end of an open field.
The territory line wasn’t visible from here, but I knew it lay right ahead, most likely flooded with soldiers as well.
Or maybe not, considering Ivan was pulling everyone to the compounds.
We wouldn’t know until we could see better.
“I would shift, but I don’t want to risk alerting them until we get numbers,” one of the soldiers—a dragon shifter—offered.
“What about that?” Thornar pointed to an old grain silo in the distance, standing in the middle of what used to be farmland. It was tall enough that we’d be able to see a decent way off and gauge what kind of opposition we’d be dealing with.
“That’ll work, hopefully,” Ravik said, giving the silo a critical look. Assessing the structural integrity, no doubt. To be fair, it didn’t look like the most stable thing in the world.
“If not,” Thornar drew out, “I’ll save you before it falls, little flame.”
“But not any of us,” one of the soldiers pointed out, amused.
Thornar narrowed his eyes. “Are you my little flame? No.”
I couldn’t lie, I loved that. Once again, Thornar managed to lighten the mood with ease.
When we reached the silo, the six soldiers stood guard at its base while we began making our way to the top to get a better view of the border ahead.
Ravik went first, then Thornar boosted me up through a gap in the rusted metal siding before following himself. Basir brought up the rear, and the building swayed slightly in response. Ravik stopped and looked down, concern flashing across his face.
Crap.
“Lux mea, maybe you should stay down there—”
“I’m good. Let’s just get up there.” After a long look, he nodded sharply and kept climbing.
I loved that they didn’t question me after that—I knew they worried, but it also made the decision feel like mine.
When we reached the top, the structure steadied, but the view made my stomach drop for an entirely different reason.
Cold Moon Pack territory sprawled out ahead of us, gray and lifeless, exactly as I remembered it. The immediate border, though, was empty. No checkpoints, no patrols, no visible presence at all.
“That’s wrong,” Thornar said, his humor gone entirely. “Nobody leaves a border undefended. Even if you’re busy planning a mass sacrifice.”
“He’s not even attempting to defend the border.” Basir scanned the horizon, his gaze catching on something farther out. “But look.”
I followed his line of sight.
Along the border, the ground was carved with tracks. Not one or two sets, but dozens, tire ruts and boot prints overlapping each other in wide, churned bands, all running the same direction: inland. Specifically, toward the dark smudge of smoke rising faint against the horizon miles ahead.
“Those aren’t old,” Basir said, studying the pattern. “Days, maybe. Not weeks.”
“He evacuated the border. You can see where the tents and posts used to be,” Ravik said slowly, tracing the tracks with his eyes. “Pulled everyone back toward the compounds? That’s my best bet.”
“He knows we’re coming,” Thornar said. “He’s trying to outrun us so we don’t reach him in time.”
“He may not know how many people he’s dealing with, though,” I said. “When Sharp left, we weren’t all there yet. His intel might be off.”
“We need to get this back to Waylon and the others,” Ravik said, already turning to climb down.
“Once the allies arrive, we push forward to Northgrove, take advantage of them not giving us any resistance.” My chest tightened at the idea of going back, memory and dread tangling together until I had to force myself to breathe slow and even.
“I’ll tell them,” one of the soldiers called up, already moving toward his pack and weapons.
“In a way, I’m glad this is the situation,” Thornar said. “There’s no way we’re going to sneak up on Ivan, so there’s no need for stealth.”
“Agreed. We’ll be able to take faster action.”
“But when we do reach them,” Basir said, “it will be bad.”
***
The convoy caught up faster than any of us expected, reaching the field surrounding the grain silo as night fully settled over the land. The darkness here felt more intense, more eerie, as a thick fog rolled out between the tents and trucks of the army.
Five armies, technically.
Vehicles stretched in orderly rows as far as the floodlights reached, lighting up the staging area at intervals.
It would give our position away, but in a wasteland this barren, there was no avoiding it.
Soldiers gathered around fires, moving station to station, checking equipment and preparing gear for the next day’s travel.
I sat at a table with Elowen, who flipped through a text while pretending to ignore Banthor’s stare. My head rested against Thornar’s shoulder as my mates and the other alphas discussed what came next. I found myself grateful for the reprieve—my legs ached from two days of travel.
“How many days until we reach Northgrove, now that we’re not scouting on foot?” Ravik’s question caught my interest, so I began to listen in on his conversation with Waylon and Haiden.
“One full day north of here without stops, but I imagine we’ll run into issues along the way,” Waylon answered.
Though the border was empty, we all knew it wouldn’t be a clear shot to Northgrove.
Honestly, I felt better now that we were acting as a group rather than individually scouting.
Seeing such a huge, organized push—all working toward the same goal of freeing the Cold Moon Pack from Ivan Rivers—gave me a sense of determination.
The scale of the operation around me still felt hard to fully grasp.
Five crests marked the tents in the camp, distinct enough that even in the dark I could pick them apart: Nightstar Flight, Stark Flight, Bloodrose Sloth, Scarlet Sloth, and Ironsun Pack.
None of the soldiers from different territories clashed the way I might have expected from groups that hadn’t fought side by side before.
If anything, they moved through each other’s camps with an ease that made them feel like one unit instead of five.
“Get some rest,” Bishu said gently from next to Elowen, catching the way my eyes kept drifting toward our tent. “Tomorrow will demand a lot from all of you.”
She was right. But even as Thornar’s hand found mine under the table and Basir shifted closer on my other side, I couldn’t quite pull my attention away. Maybe I’d just rest my eyes for a bit.
When my eyes closed, flashes of Northgrove rose to meet me.
Soon we’d be standing in its shadow again. And in six days, we would either save everyone trapped inside its walls or lose everything trying.