Malakai studied both males before signing.
Leena had not only been Sule’s mate and queen. She made this place a home.
Neither brother argued.
She had softened edges honed sharply enough to cut anyone who came near them. She had made room for care inside males who usually had none to spare and had seen humanity in places where even they had stopped searching for it.
Now she was gone, and every one of them was discovering what her absence exposed.
Dax turned back toward the weighted dummy, but his next sequence lacked its previous control. His blade moved in wider, harsher arcs, carrying frustration more than form.
“We focus on what comes next,” he said. “Anyone looking for leverage will know there is an heir upstairs. We cannot let grief consume the clan while the wards are compromised.”
Malakai’s expression darkened.
He waited until Dax faced him again.
Marcella will not forget the heir. When she moves, it will be a test, a message, or both.
Cole caught the bag and held it still.
“When she moves?”
Not if.
The certainty in Malakai’s hands settled heavily over the room.
Dax lowered his sword.
“Then she will discover that losing Leena has not made us easier to kill.”
“No,” Cole said. “It has made us angry.”
“That too.”
The faint trace of Dax’s usual humor disappeared almost as soon as it surfaced.
Cole stepped away from the bag and wiped the sweat from his face with the back of one wrist.
“What about Rhen?”
The question entered the room like a blade being drawn slowly from its sheath.
Rhen had been absent from the training center since Leena died. He had returned to the newly turned woman because the tether made her his responsibility, but none of them mistook duty for stability.
The maker tether had formed in crisis, without the woman’s consent or the clan’s counsel, and it had become another point of strain inside a house already close to breaking.
Malakai folded his arms before answering.
The tether is new, Leena is dead, and Rhen is carrying both without allowing anyone near him. We give him room.
Dax’s jaw clenched hard enough to show the tendon beneath his skin.
“Room is the last thing we should give him.”
He set the blade onto the nearest rack with more force than necessary, then faced Malakai fully and signed as he continued.
“You saw him after she died. He was barely inside his own skin.”
