The request was blunt. The dens wanted a formal temporary shield — not full submission to Frostfang, but a public acknowledgment that the healing territory sat under Frostfang's protection for the duration of the border instability.
The three graves had made the abstract risk concrete. Patients and healers were beginning to ask whether independence was only a clean word for isolation.
Elara listened to the end before she answered.
"No."
Sigrid's face tightened. "You would rather keep a philosophical seam than keep people from looking over their shoulders at every southern road?"
"I would rather keep the dens from becoming proof that Liv was right." Elara's voice stayed level. "The moment I accept Frostfang as shield, every northern pack that already wants to count this work as Lila's column gets its evidence, and every southern dens that feared northern reach gets its confirmation."
