Cassian announced the rite that night.
He did not dress it up as comfort, and he did not offer it as a distraction from war. He stood at the head of the strategy chamber with the winter maps still spread across the long table, the ink not yet dry on the patrol changes Jace had finished an hour earlier, and he told his captains exactly what would happen before the first hard snow settled over Grimridge.
"The winter fire oath goes ahead," he said.
The room held still for one beat too long.
Not shock. Calculation.
Half the wolves in that room understood instantly what the choice meant. The other half understood it a breath later, when their eyes flicked, not to Cassian, but to Sable, seated at the table's right side with one hand resting low against the curve of her stomach and Mara standing quiet behind her chair.
