The cull gate was still hanging crooked when Cassian dragged the first man back into the winter yard and made the whole pack watch him bleed into the frost.
Sable came through the same gate under her own power.
The net had left rope burns across one calf and along both palms. One side of her shoulder throbbed where the weighted corner had struck, and the deeper pull low through her body had not eased since the moment the net took her down into the churned grain and dragged her through the race. The child had gone quiet after that, not in a way that felt empty, only in a way that forced her to keep one part of her mind turned inward even while the yard still smelled of horse sweat, trampled feed, leather, and the ugly breath of men who had failed.
