Theo's voice hit her before the man himself did—a quiet slice of sound that carried more weight than shouting ever could.
"Talia. There's something you should know. Come with me."
She froze mid-stride, halfway through dismissing Mara's question about crop rotation. The air around him felt… wrong. Too still. Too sharp. Theo didn't radiate danger the way Dav did, didn't loom or glare like Cael. His danger was subtle: a sharpening, a tightening, a quietness that meant something serious had finally breached his control.
Her heartbeat changed rhythm.
Leadership clicked into place like a lock turning.
She followed him without a word.
The path he chose led toward the inner guard post—a shadowed alcove carved into the mountain, still makeshift, lanterns hanging by twine. Two guards stood rigid at the doorway, not out of duty but bracing tension. She stepped past them and found the source.
A young man—sixteen, maybe seventeen—struggled against their grip, face flushed, sweat slicking his hairline. Rage burned behind his eyes, raw and brittle. Around the edges of the room, a knot of older teens and young adults lingered, their bodies tight, their eyes flicking to her and away.
Talia's stomach dropped.
"What happened?"
Theo answered, voice clipped. "He tried to force his way to the Territory Keystone."
The words hit harder than any blow.
"The Keystone?" she repeated, stepping closer. "Why?"
The young man lifted his chin, defiant even through fear. "Because you're not doing enough."
Murmurs behind him—agreement, resentment, uncertainty.
He kept going, the words tumbling out, too loud, too desperate:
"Why should one person hold everything? We're the ones hunting, building and bleeding! Why don't we get access? Why do you get to decide everything?"
The room stilled. Not with shock—most of them had clearly heard this rant already—but with the terrible awareness that he still didn't understand what he'd almost done.
Talia knelt until she was eye-level with him. The guards shifted uneasily.
"I'd like to talk," she said softly. "Let him go."
They hesitated, but Theo gave a single nod. Hands released. The young man did not run—he looked too stunned by her calm to move at all.
"Talia—" Theo warned.
She flicked her fingers. I've got him.
She kept her voice level—quiet enough that everyone had to lean in. "Do you know what the Keystone is?"
"It's the centre of the territory," he snapped. "The system. You control it. Why shouldn't we share that control?"
A ripple of uneasy agreement moved through the watching youths.
Talia didn't look at them. She kept her gaze locked on the young man—steady, cold, unblinking.
"The Keystone isn't a toy."
He flinched.
She chose her next words carefully, hoping the system would back her bluff… and praying she wasn't anywhere near the truth.
"If it destabilizes," she said, tone low and measured, "the valley could become unsafe. If it breaks… we don't know what happens. Food supply, weather buffer, system protections—maybe all of it, disappears."
A faint stir moved through the crowd. Theo, just behind her, went still. She felt rather than saw his thought: Please let that be wrong.
Talia continued anyway, voice steady. "The Territory Keystone doesn't respond to random grabbing. It responds to responsibility. To stability. To someone willing to carry a weight no one else sees."
His breath hitched, the first edge of doubt creeping in.
She leaned in a hair's breadth. "Look at me."
He obeyed.
"If you had touched it," she murmured, "you might have triggered something we can't undo. Maybe nothing, maybe everything." She let the uncertainty sit between them like a blade. "Was that your plan?"
And behind her, Theo exhaled once through his nose, the silent kind that meant:
I hope you're not right.
The young man went pale—utterly drained of colour. His legs trembled.
He hadn't known.
Of course he hadn't known.
And someone had used that ignorance like a weapon.
Talia straightened and exhaled. "He works for the community for the next week—stone labour or hunting. Admin chooses. He apologizes at tomorrow's meal."
The young man nodded quickly, shakily.
"And the rest of you," she said, turning to the small cluster of youths without raising her voice, "You're angry, that's fine. You're scared, that's normal. But you don't mess with the thing keeping us alive. Go home, I'm sure your family is waiting."
The crowd trickled away, chastened. The young man was escorted out, too shaken to resist.
Theo shut the door behind them with a hard click.
Inside the emergency bunker office, the atmosphere thickened—every department head crammed into the small space, faces drawn tight.
Talia sank into her chair, elbows on the table. Not defeated. Preparing.
"Let's start," she said.
Junia stepped forward, worry lining her expression. "The dissatisfaction among the younger men is rising sharply."
Talia's fingers tapped once against the wood.
"It's fear," Junia continued. "They feel powerless. They see what you can do, and they want control over something—anything. And…" Her voice dipped. "…it feels manipulated. As if someone is nudging their insecurities."
Talia's gaze snapped to Dav. "Do we have anyone for covert work? Quiet, blend-in, watch-the-shadows work?"
Dav's expression flattened into something sharp. "A few. I'll put them on an internal watch."
"Make it a permanent shift. This has happened once already, let's not let a second go unnoticed." Talia spoke.
Leadership wasn't just protecting people from the outside. Sometimes the threat grew from cracks inside the walls.
Dav's next report did nothing to ease the knot in her chest.
"Tracks at the tunnel entrance," he said. "Three times in two days."
"Beasts?" Grandma asked.
"No." Dav shook his head. "Humanoid. Too large for a human. The stride is wrong. Pattern looks like Beastfolk—shifter-type."
Silence condensed.
Intelligent. Observing. Testing boundaries.
Too early. Far too early.
Talia sat straighter. "If they come over the mountains, we can't stop them. But the tunnel—"
"We control," Theo finished.
"Yes. Build defenses at the mouth. Layered, if possible. Guards stationed around the clock. If worst comes to worst, we seal the tunnel and defend."
She didn't say siege. The word curled anyway in everyone's mind.
The meeting continued in quick reports.
Good news:
Tegan announced two more plants showing medicinal promise.
Mara had two small herbivorous species flagged for future herding trials.
The water filtration prototype was nearly finished.
Bad news:
A pack of D-rank herbivores drifting closer to hunting borders.
Predator noises along the south ridge increasing.
High-altitude winds forming—unsettling patterns.
"Probably seasonal migration," Talia murmured. "Monitor. Don't engage ever, we can't defeat them yet. Retreat from the hunting ground if we have to until they pass."
Then Junia pointed at the map table.
"Storm," she said simply.
The drawn cloud pattern told the story: swelling, spiraling, dense. Three to four days, maybe less.
Talia's pulse steadied—not in calm, but in readiness.
"We move vulnerable groups into the bunker. Starting tonight."
"Ahead of schedule?" Cael asked.
"Yes. I want the main bunker filled before winds pick up. Farming personnel and families shift to the new district. I'll prioritise the animal pens today—they won't be system-perfect, but they'll hold."
Her mother nodded. "Better them inside than panicking in the valley."
Dav cut in. "What about hunting during the storm?"
"Essential-only," Talia said. "Your teams only. No green youths. Patrols reduce to rotating pairs. No one goes out alone."
"What about the guard post?" Cael asked.
"We fortify the tunnel entrance. Patrol teams fall back there during the storm. Prep shelter and supplies for them now. If something tries to use the wind to mask its approach, that's the choke point."
Theo was already writing.
Someone else asked, "Food?"
"We can last one to two weeks without hunting if rationed. Preservation teams move to the farming district. It has production buildings, just outfit them and we can preserve food during the storm."
They absorbed her words the same way they absorbed structural plans or survival instructions—because she had earned their trust, not demanded it.
When the meeting ended, the crowd dispersed with urgent murmurs, orders already echoing across the valley.
Talia stepped outside.
Wind tugged at her clothes, sharper than yesterday. The air tasted metallic, pressure dropping slowly. Clouds were beginning to build unseen beyond the ridge.
Storm outside.
Storm inside her people.
Storm at the borders of her territory watching them.
She wrapped her arms lightly across her chest, not for warmth, but grounding.
"Three days," she whispered to the valley, to the mountain, to herself. "Let's see if that's enough."