Chapter 1: The Stranger at the Gate

Elder Rowan watched stormlight slide along Velharrow's gate as an unknown traveler arrived from the road. The elder offered warmth, not questions. Rowan had learned, in long years of keeping a small settlement alive, that help often came without pedigree — and that the wrong question could send a willing hand back into the dark.

The wolves were the first sign everyone could name. They crashed through the southern outskirts in packs that looked hunted rather than hunting, as if something deeper in the woods had turned the forest against itself. Rowan sent the traveler to thin their numbers before panic took the village gates.

When the packs scattered, the night watch breathed easier, but Rowan did not. Beneath the settlement, old wards had begun to thrum like a worried heart. The wolves were fleeing toward Velharrow, driven by something unseen. Rowan knew help could come from any hand willing to answer — and that the village had received its first warning, not its last.