Frost clung to Tian's Watch like a promise no prayer could warm. The dead crows fed the sour terraces; the charred gate whispered rumor up the ridge like smoke. By dawn, word spread farther than any trader's silver tongue.
The Wolfchain banner did not stay hidden.
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Li Shen tied it to an old spear shaft, snapped from Master Tian's orchard fence. The silk draped black against the frost — the wolf's head glared, chain coiled tight around its throat but teeth bared like it would bite the sky.
He planted it outside Master Tian's door at first light.
A child woke first. Saw the banner flicker in the dawn. Ran whispering through muddy paths — door to door, hut to hut. By the time the sun cracked the ridge, every pair of tired eyes in Tian's Watch stared at it.
Some looked afraid.
Some looked hungry.
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Li Shen stood beneath the cloth, arms crossed. His blade leaned against the post. Yue Lan sat at his feet, spirit threads weaving idle shapes in the morning mist — weaving prayers that no monk had ever written.
Master Tian stood inside the doorway, staff tapping the frozen step.
"It breathes," the old man rasped. "You feed it blood, it'll howl."
Li Shen's grin cracked the frost.
"Then let it."
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They came by midday — not crows with silk this time, nor scouts half-starved for coin. These wore real iron. Three bounty men first — veterans from some border skirmish long buried by salt and rumor. Faces pitted by frostbite, eyes flat, boots wrapped in wolf pelts as if they owned the name.
Behind them, a monk in yellow robes — silver prayer beads clicking softly as he stepped from the trail's hush. His head was shaved clean, but his brow bore a crow feather burned into the skin — a mark no true monk would carry.
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They stopped at the charred posts that had once been Tian's gate.
The lead bounty man spat in the ash.
"Wolfchain," he called, voice thick with the phlegm of half a dozen cheap wines. "Old toothless ghosts. You think they'll keep your neck warm when the Nine Heavens come for your head?"
Li Shen didn't move. Didn't blink. Yue Lan's threads drifted toward the bounty men's boots — thin frost biting at cracked leather.
The monk stepped forward, palms folded.
"Brother," he said, voice like stale rice wine poured into a silver cup. "Kneel. Cut the banner down. Offer the chain. The Nine Heavens will forgive."
Li Shen leaned his head back — let the cold air scrape his throat clean.
"Forgive?" His grin showed more teeth than mercy. "The crowns that chained us in the dark? That bled Tian's Watch dry while you prayed for harvests that never came?"
He tapped the frozen mud with his heel — once.
"I spit on your forgiveness."
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The monk's smile didn't break. But the bounty men moved — boots scuffing frost, blades hissing free. Steel gleamed sharp, edges clean and hungry.
Yue Lan's threads snapped out — bright as ghostlight in the gray. They tangled ankles first, wrists next. One bounty man staggered, blade spinning from his grasp before it tasted flesh.
Li Shen stepped forward. His own blade whispered up — edge kissing the monk's robes in the same breath the monk's chant turned to poison.
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Steel met prayer. Threads met blood. The frost drank both.
When the last bounty man hit his knees, the monk stumbled backward — throat marked with a single line of frost where Yue Lan's threads whispered against skin.
Li Shen let him run.
He watched the monk trip over the charred gate post, scamper down the slope like rumor afraid of its own echo.
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When it was done, Tian's Watch stood silent — the banner snapping once in a gust that tasted of pine and blood.
Master Tian stepped from the doorway, staff tapping iron-hard mud.
"More teeth will come," he rasped.
Li Shen wiped his blade clean on the dead man's cloak.
"Let them."
Yue Lan's threads coiled around his wrist — warm and cold, soft and sharp.
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A wolf that remembers its chain does not beg.
It bites.
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⚡ End of Chapter Sixteen — Teeth for the Wolf
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