The pack house was awake, but too controlled, as if everyone had agreed to a temporary truce that could splinter the moment someone pressed too openly against it.
Routine still moved beneath the surface: bells, footsteps, muted traffic through the halls. Yet everything carried the strained caution of a place forced to remember exactly where its Alpha's attention had settled.
Sable dressed slowly, her movements deliberate, the pain in her ribs and shoulder no longer sharp enough to stun her, but constant enough to follow every motion.
Visibility had never cost her only once. It settled into the body and collected there, layering itself beneath skin until even breathing felt like proof of something survived.
When she stepped into the corridor, no one stopped her.
She was allowed to move, but not invited to exist.
The first sign that the elders had changed tactics appeared in the service wing.
