ORION The northern lords had not sent word ahead because they had not wanted to give him time to prepare. He understood that within two minutes of receiving them in the great hall. Lord Aldric Vane, eldest of the three, head of the Vane Pack, with the particular stillness of a man who had been making calculated moves in wolf politics for forty years, did not sit down when invited. He stood at the center of the hall with his two companions flanking him and looked at the room with the slow assessment of someone taking inventory. Orion stood at the head of it. Caius to his left, two garrison officers behind. The household had assembled along the walls as directed stewards, senior staff, the Covenant witness who was still in residence, and had come because formal assemblies were within her mandate to observe. Vessa was in the hall. She had positioned herself near the middle of the room, close enough to Orion's side of it to read as allied but not close enough to be called presumptu
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