"Noted."
"Add it to the list of things I am at capacity for."
I sit down on the stool. The goat is still where I left her. She makes a sound at me—the same complaint as before, slightly more aggrieved—and I lean my forehead against her flank for a second because she's warm and I haven't finished.
Three babies. A boyfriend for Nugget. Petra's daughter waving until the trees took her.
I switch sides—bucket, hands, the rhythm of it.
The second side strips clean. The female sighs and shifts her weight. I scratch under her jaw before I stand.
The sun is up properly now. The clearing is awake. Wolves moving through their morning—somebody's children at the woodpile, somebody else stoking the fire pit, the goat on the far side of the pen calling for grain.
I pick up the bucket.
Footsteps on the path.
A body pushing through the trees too hard, unsteady.
Wolves stopping mid-task. Heads turning toward the north path.
Dara is on her feet.
The runner breaks through the tree line.
He's one of ours—younger, lean, one of the scouts Keer sent out after Brennan came in. His face is white. Chest heaving.
His mouth opens.
Keer is already moving toward him—across the camp in long fast strides, the bond hum waking up under my ribs as he does it, sharp now, urgent.
The runner pulls a breath.
"THEY'RE HERE."
Chapter 24
The bucket is still in my hand.
Everything moves at once around me—wolves sprinting to positions, weapons up, Keer's voice cutting through the chaos, clear, controlled, holding the whole pack in his head at once, who goes where, who does what—
I turn one way. Then the other. Healing station. Keer. Healing station. Keer. The milk sloshes hard against the side of the bucket, and a splash goes over the rim onto the dirt.
No.
Not the milk. I just—she let me—it took twenty minutes—
"Melori."
"The milk—"
Dara takes the bucket out of my hand. Then my arm.
"Melori—"
"I know." I don't know. Can't think. "We're ready."
"Are we?"
