Chapter 11: Edge of the Banished Realm

The snow crunched softly beneath Eirene’s boots as she marched at the head of a hunting party, ceremonial armor gleaming with frostlight. Her cloak bore the sigil of the Pale Warden—Freya’s sigil—stitched by court tailors too young to know better.

Behind her, Frostfang’s elite troops trailed with blades drawn, tracking the paths of exiles through the Deadwood.

“Hold formation,” Eirene called. “We flush them, we break them. No mercy for wolves who run.”

She wore Freya’s legend like a skin.

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Not far ahead, Freya crouched in the branches of a crooked pine, eyes narrowed as the first soldiers entered the valley below.

“They’re mimicking our movements,” Lark muttered, pressed against the trunk beside her.

“No,” Freya said. “They’re staging a performance.”

She pointed to the lead rider.

Eirene.

Clad in Freya’s colors. Freya’s armor. Even her war braid.

Lark hissed. “That snake’s parading as you?”