Chapter 4 — Ashes on the Wind

The mist thinned before dawn but it did not leave, and Elias did not sleep.

He walked the line the wolves had drawn at the square's edge, where the cobbles gave way to root and dark, and he counted his people the way a man counts coins he cannot afford to lose. The pack had held through the night. No one had died. He kept reminding himself of that, because everything else about the morning argued against comfort.