The pack gathered days later, when the worst of the wounded had been tended and the dead had been laid to rest beneath the old oaks where every Shadowfang wolf returned in the end.
They gathered in the great courtyard, still scorched in places, the eastern wing behind them a ruin that would take a season to rebuild, but they gathered whole, and that was more than anyone had dared hope for in the black hours of that burning night.
Wolves stood shoulder to shoulder, warriors beside servants, elders beside pups, all of them turned toward the dais where their Alpha stood.
Dorian did not begin with a speech about victory. He began with an apology, and he began it by calling Magnus to stand beside him before the whole pack.
Magnus came slowly and uncertain, still carrying the weight of what he had almost done in the dark, but Dorian did not let him carry it alone.
"Many of you know what happened these past weeks," Dorian said, his voice echoing clear across the silent courtyard.
