He did not strike the bags or touch the weights. He stood with his shoulders set and his expression distant, his eyes following the bag’s movements as though he were reading a pattern in every swing. Malakai had always been the quiet observer among them, the one who studied a fracture before deciding where it would spread.
Even he looked wrong now.
Malakai waited until Cole glanced toward him before raising his hands.
Everything feels wrong without her.
Cole drove another fist into the bag before catching it on the return. He kept one hand against the leather while turning enough for Malakai to see him.
“Everything is wrong,” he answered, signing with his free hand. “There is no walking this back.”
Malakai nodded once.
Leena’s death had not merely taken Sule’s mate or the clan’s queen. She had been the quiet center of a brotherhood built from blood, obligation, and centuries of violence. Her presence had steadied them so naturally that none of them had admitted how heavily they depended upon it.
Now the fractures were no longer small enough to ignore.
Metal hissed through the air behind them.
Dax was running combat drills against a weighted dummy, his blade moving in controlled, lethal arcs. His form remained economical and precise, built for killing rather than display. He finished the sequence, planted the tip of the blade against the floor, and turned toward the others, sweat darkening the collar of his shirt.
“We have survived wars, purges, and hunts,” he said, repeating the words with his hands for Malakai. “We survive this too.”
Malakai’s gaze remained fixed on him.
This is not a war. This is Leena.
Dax’s mouth tightened. He dragged one forearm across his brow as though he could wipe away what her name did to the room.
“I know,” he said roughly. “But standing still inside the grief will not bring her back.”
Cole released the bag and drove his fist into it again, harder than before.
“No one is standing still.”
The chain above the bag groaned beneath the force.
Dax lifted his blade from the floor.
“That was not what I meant.”
“It sounded close enough.”
“Then hear the rest before deciding I have forgotten her.”
Cole stopped.
The bag swung between them, gradually losing momentum.
Dax held his gaze.
“She was family. She was the center of this place, and every corridor feels wrong without her in it. I know exactly who we lost.”
His voice roughened, but he did not look away.
“I also know she left a son upstairs, and grief will not protect him.”
The tension in Cole’s shoulders shifted without disappearing.
