The moon grew larger each night. People said the same thing in different ways as they queued for stew or strapped on quivers: It's brighter. It's earlier. It's close. No one pretended it didn't matter. The howls outside had changed too. They weren't scattered any more. They came in layers and held a shape, like a crowd keeping time.
Inside Ravenholt the work was simple and constant. Extra braces went on the gates. Buckets of sand and water were set along the wall walk. The armoury laid out spare bowstrings and sorted bolts into neat piles. The kitchen watered the stew and called it hearty. Children were kept indoors. Matches were counted twice. The captains said the same things every hour so there would be no surprises when people were tired.
Elara and her friends were just more hands in that machine. They weren't officers, they weren't names that turned heads. They drew water, carried wood, checked fletching, walked short watches, and did what they were told. If they were noticed, it was as a group of young people who were quick, willing, and not trouble. That suited Elara. It also made her feel like she didn't exist.
Luke walked more than anyone. He was quiet, kept to the edges, and missed almost nothing. Elara often found him on the parapet looking past the trees, or by the gate with his weight leaned slightly forward as if the ground might move. He looked like a man waiting for a knock.
"Under the full they come closer," he said one evening, voice even. "They push. They try the corners. They stop fearing fire and noise. They make mistakes because of it, but so do we."
"You've seen it," Elara said.
"Yes."
She watched the treeline. "Is this one worse?"
"Yes. There are more of them in the area. They've been moving in larger groups for weeks. They are learning to hold together without leaders. That makes them dangerous."
She glanced at him. "You sound certain."
"I am."
He added, in the same practical tone, "I've called for reinforcements."
"You've been here," she said, frowning. "We don't send letters out. You didn't leave."
"I didn't need to."
Before she could ask what that meant, footsteps came up the stair.
A tall man reached the top first, dark hair cropped close, cloak plain and dusty from the road. A lean woman came behind him, her gaze moving fast over the wall-walk, the gate, the angles, the people. They looked like travellers. They stood like people who were used to being obeyed. Villagers nearby turned to look. No one smiled.
Elara's sight showed her more. Gold surrounded both newcomers. The man's was steady and weighty. The woman's ran along her edges quick and sharp, like nerves. It was as clear as a flag.
"Shelter," the man said to the captain. "We'll work for it."
The captain eyed them. "Wanderers on the eve of the full," he said. "Convenient."
Luke stepped forward. He didn't stand in front of them. He stood slightly behind and to the side. He dipped his head. "They're with me," he said.
The captain looked at him, weighed the answer, then nodded once. "You'll pull shifts. You'll eat last until we see how you work. Keep your hands where people can see them."
"That's fine," the man said. He had a calm voice that sounded normal even when it carried.
They were taken to the old armoury and given floor space and a roll of blankets. No one asked their names aloud. Names came later.
---
Ravenholt kept its rhythm. Elara and Caleb hauled buckets. Torvee fetched more wood than anyone else just to prove a point. Corin shot until her arms trembled, then sat and fletched until the feeling came back to her hands. The howls held distance. The moon climbed.
The newcomers kept apart. They did their shifts without fuss. They didn't offer advice. They watched. People watched them back. Gossip was simple and blunt: They're trouble. They're running from trouble. They're scouts. They're useful. They're a risk. No one pretended otherwise.
Elara saw what the others couldn't. The tall man's gold was the clear, solid kind. The woman's gold moved faster. It never left their bodies, but the air seemed to lean with it. Luke shadowed them with quiet deference. He didn't give them orders. He made room.
Caleb noticed Elara noticing. He didn't see the auras. He saw her looking. He said nothing at first. Then, while they queued with their bowls, he said, "You keep staring at the wanderers." His tone was careful.
"I'm watching them like everyone else," she said.
"No," he said mildly. "Not like everyone else."
She looked at her stew. "They stand like soldiers. That's all."
Caleb let it go, but his jaw had gone tight. She put her free hand on his wrist for a second. That softened it. He was trying. She knew it. It didn't fix the piece of her that was changing.
---
It was midday when Elara understood how Luke had "called" them.
She and Caleb were carrying pails along the southern walk when the tall man—later she'd know him as Garrett—stopped. He didn't look alarmed. He simply paused with his weight on one foot and his gaze on the line of men two merlons away. The woman—Amber—stilled at the same time. Luke's posture shifted by a fraction.
Garrett said, "South side is two men short. Fill it."
The captain looked up from a ledger, startled. No one had spoken to Garrett. No runner had come.
Elara said, before she could stop herself, "You didn't speak."
Amber looked at her, not unkindly, not kindly. "When a pack is bound, the Alpha can link our minds," she said. "Any of us can make a request along that line if he allows it. We don't need to shout."
Luke didn't add anything. He dipped his head at them the way he had at the gate. It was obvious respect.
Caleb looked between faces with open confusion. "You're saying you… talk without talking."
"Yes," Amber said. "It is faster. It keeps people alive in a fight."
Elara asked the plain question: "Can you hear each other now?"
Garrett answered. "We can reach each other. We're not eavesdropping on your thoughts. You're not in it."
Elara nodded. "I didn't think I was."
"It doesn't work on outsiders," Amber said. "It only works inside the pack. The Alpha controls the link. Betas and Gammas can carry it, Omegas feel it pulling. That's the rule."
Luke stood quiet. He didn't contradict anything.
"How far?" Elara asked.
"A long way," Garrett said. "Far enough that Luke could call us from here. That's why we're here."
Caleb's mouth flattened. "Useful skill."
"It is," Garrett said. He didn't smile. He didn't boast. He answered the question and nothing else.
The captain sent two men down to fill the gap. People stopped staring after a minute and went back to work. Elara kept walking with her buckets. Caleb walked in silence beside her. When they reached the stair he said, as if finishing a thought, "You're not in it."
"No."
"Good," he said. "I don't like it."
She didn't argue. She didn't agree. She understood.
---
By evening the keep smelled of thin stew and damp wool. The hall was loud and ordinary. Knucklebones clacked under a table. Someone tuned a fiddle and never played it. The newcomers took their food near the back and kept their heads down.
Torvee, who had been watching all day with badly hidden interest, dropped onto the bench next to Elara and spoke under her breath. "Those two are too neat."
"Neat how?" Elara asked.
"They move like they've counted the room twice," Torvee said. "Also they don't blink enough."
Corin ate slowly and said nothing. Her green brightened and dimmed with her thoughts. She was trying to decide something and hadn't decided yet.
Luke stood. He didn't sit unless told. He watched the doors, the windows, the people who were watching the people. He was careful not to stand where it would look like guarding. He stood like furniture.
Elara's silver stirred whenever Garrett and Amber shifted. It wasn't attraction. It was recognition: these were wolves who could move a lot of weight with a small nudge, and her blood noticed the gravity. She didn't like the feeling. She didn't dislike it either. She filed it with everything else she couldn't name yet.
On the way out of the hall, Amber spoke to Luke in a voice anyone could hear. "Don't forget why we're here."
"I haven't," Luke said.
Caleb heard that. He looked at Elara. She knew what he'd ask later. She didn't know how she'd answer.
---
The moon rose clear and full. The yard went pale with it. The howls came closer than the night before and moved along the line like a hand testing planks for rot. No charge. No rush. Just pressure.
The wall took on its night shape. Every pair of boots was placed where it would be needed. The captain went back and forth. Hale—no, Garrett, Elara corrected herself, learning the name properly—stayed at the southern angle and looked down into the ditch a long time. Amber walked a triangle, back and forth between three points that gave a full view of the gate. Luke stood where he could see Elara and the stair and the captain and the darkest patch of trees. He stood as if that spot had been made for him.
Elara, Corin, Torvee and Caleb were given routine tasks that kept them close and useful. They kept water near the brazier. They carried spare bolts. They fetched a sling and a bandage when a guard reopened a cut. They weren't asked to lead anything. They were told not to get in the way. It was blunt and fair.
"Why here?" Elara asked Garrett when she passed close enough. She kept her voice low. "There are stronger keeps."
Garrett answered without turning. "More people live here than most," he said. "That draws them. Also, this valley holds ground that pulls things. It's not magic. It's old shapes in the land. Things gather here because the land makes it easy."
"Why now?" she asked. "There have been a hundred full moons."
"Because they're changing," he said. "They're holding together. They're smart enough to probe and fall back. We've seen it for months. Here and other places. Numbers matter. Patterns matter. Tonight is a night when both are bad. That's all."
No one shivered at his words. People were too busy to perform fear. Elara appreciated that.
Near midnight, pebbles pattered in the ditch. Two shadows eased forward, stopped, and eased back. The archers didn't waste a shot. The wolves didn't shout. Garrett lifted a hand and the captain moved two men from a quiet corner without asking why. If anyone wondered why Garrett, a stranger, was worth listening to, they kept it to themselves. The move made sense to the eye. That was enough.
Elara felt something tighten in the air to her left. It wasn't sound. It was the way Luke's posture changed by a finger's width and Amber shifted before he finished shifting. She couldn't hear their thoughts. She didn't need to. The result was plain: three people moving as if they were one person with three bodies.
Caleb noticed that much. "You see that?" he asked.
"Yes."
"I hate it," he said, honest.
"I know."
He stood closer to her after that. She didn't step away.
The ferals didn't commit that night. They probed, counted, and left. The howls thinned an hour before dawn. People loosened shoulders they hadn't realised were tight. The captain said, "Stand easy," and meant don't fall over. The archers checked their strings with the habitual little kiss to the fingers that had nothing to do with belief and everything to do with habit. Work began again in the yard as if no one had stood awake all night.
Garrett and Amber came down the stair last. They didn't look proud or tired. They looked like people who had done the thing they had come to do that night: watch, measure, prepare.
Elara met them at the foot of the steps with Luke at her side. She spoke plainly, because she had decided she was done with feeling kept in the half-light.
"You didn't come to defend Ravenholt," she said. "You came for me."
Amber answered first. "Yes."
Garrett didn't soften it. "If the walls fail, we take you out. That is our task."
Luke added, "We will not leave you."
Caleb stared. "You're serious."
Garrett looked at him with a level gaze. "We are. Your captains will do their best for this place. We respect that. Our duty is different."
Elara held Garrett's eyes. "Why me?"
"Because you survived a bite," he said. "Because your blood shows silver when it wakes. Because if you die, something that might help won't happen. That's the plain version."
She absorbed that. There were softer ways to say it. Softer ways weren't useful.
Caleb's face was tight with conflict. "So if the gate goes, you'll drag her away while the rest of us fight."
"Yes," Garrett said. "We'll try not to drag. We'll try to plan. But yes."
"Good to know," Caleb said, dry as old bread. He didn't look at Elara when he said it. He looked at the ground until his jaw unclenched.
Elara didn't apologise. She didn't defend herself. She said, "All right," and meant, I heard you. Then: "You should know I won't run if I can help someone who's in reach."
Amber nodded once. "That's useful information. We can work with that. But if it's you or the wall, we choose you."
Luke said, "We will keep you close so the choice is simpler."
There was no hidden meaning in any of it. Everyone understood.
They parted without ceremony. Garrett and Amber returned to their corner of the armoury. Luke walked beside Elara to her door and stood in the corridor until she shut it. He didn't ask if she wanted him to. He understood his job.
Elara sat on the edge of the bed and let the quiet in. She went through what she knew in an ordered list:
The ferals were organising.
The full moon made them bold.
This valley drew them because of its shape and because of how many people lived here.
Garrett and Amber were here because Luke had called them through a link only their pack could use.
The wolves' job was to keep her alive, not to hold these walls.
If Ravenholt fell, they would take her whether she agreed or not.
None of it was dramatic. None of it was secret now. It was simple, and it carried weight.
She lay back and stared at the dark line where the wall met the ceiling until her eyes watered. She thought about Caleb and wished she could give him a world where the only thing that mattered was the next day's work. She thought about Torvee and Corin and wished she could fold them into a safe place in her pocket. She thought about Luke standing in the corridor like a piece of furniture that would move to block a door if needed. She thought about gold that moved people without words and the way her own silver had begun to answer to things outside her control.
She slept at last, not because she was calm, but because she was tired and the body takes what it can.
Dawn came. The keep woke. The moon would be full again that night. No one pretended otherwise. Everyone checked the knots on the braces and the numbers on the board and the edge on the knives. Work filled the gaps fear left.
Elara tied back her hair, slung a quiver she might not use, and went to find her friends. She wasn't going to ask for comfort. She was going to make sure they all knew where to stand if the gate went.
Outside the hall, Luke waited with his hands behind his back. He fell into step without a word. It wasn't mysterious. It was his job. And for today, that was enough.