The Song and the Snare
Dawn comes up on the strangest choir in two worlds.
The herd stands at the cliff rim, facing east, exactly as the wolves expect — but the sleeping foals in the center are hay bundles under blankets, the real foals safe in a cave with the three crossest nursemaids in the herd. The gaps in the sentry line are not gaps; they are invitations, and behind each one waits a horn like a lowered lance. Nimbus and Growler float under the cliff's lip, a storm cloud pretending very hard to be morning fog. And you stand where Aurelia herself placed you, at the rim beside Sera, iron bell from Growler's saddlebag in your fist.
The east goes rose. Aurelia lifts her head and begins the Dawn Song — one voice, then ten, then all of them, and it isn't like bells at all; it's like the first day of the world happening again on purpose. You feel your bracelet go warm. You feel the sun listen.
The wolves charge into the song like a grey wave — and the trap closes like a story ending. Sentries wheel; horns flash rose and gold; Growler surges up over the rim with a thunderclap that bowls five wolves into smoke at once. But the pack-leader — a wolf the size of a doorway, older and colder than the rest — cuts through everything, ignores every fighter, and leaps, jaws wide, for the singer nearest the edge. For Sera.
You are the only one close enough. There is time for exactly one thing.