The inside of the structure was nothing like I expected.
Organized. Clean. Weapons stored properly along one wall. Food supplies stacked neatly in the corner. People moving with purpose not panic.
Whoever ran this place knew what they were doing.
---
The man with the winter ice eyes led us through the main space without stopping. People looked up as we passed. Some curious. Some carefully neutral.
Nobody looked hostile.
That was something at least.
---
He brought us to a back room. Smaller. A table with a map spread across it. Two chairs. A fire in the corner doing serious work against the cold.
He closed the door behind us.
"Sit," he said.
"I am fine standing," I said.
He looked at me for a second.
Then he almost smiled.
"Alright," he said. "Stand."
---
He moved to the table and looked down at the map without touching it.
"My name is Aldric," he said. "I have been running this outpost for two years."
"How many people?" I asked.
"Twenty eight," he said. "All hybrid or hybrid blooded. Every one of them pushed out of pack territory at some point."
---
He looked up at me.
"Six months ago I started hearing stories about the pendant," he said. "Old stories at first. Then newer ones. Word spreading through the hybrid networks."
"Pip's networks," I said.
"Among others," he said. "Information moves fast when people are desperate."
---
"You said you knew what I was carrying," I said. "How?"
He reached into the inside of his coat and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Old. The edges soft from handling.
He put it on the table.
I stepped forward and looked at it.
---
It was a drawing. Rough but detailed. A pendant. Dark metal. Crown shape.
Exactly what was in my pocket.
"Where did you get this?" I asked.
"My grandmother drew it," he said. "From memory. She saw it once when she was a child."
"Who had it?" I asked.
"A woman passing through her village," he said. "Moving fast. Being followed."
---
He looked at the drawing.
"My grandmother said the woman stopped long enough to show her the pendant and tell her one thing," he said.
"What thing?" I asked.
"That one day someone would come carrying it," he said. "And when they did the broken crown would rise again."
---
The room was very quiet.
Pip shifted beside me. I could feel them wanting to say something and holding it back.
"The broken crown," I said. "Your flag."
"Yes," Aldric said.
"How long have you been flying it?" I asked.
"Since the day I came out here," he said. "Two years. Waiting."
---
Two years.
Riven and Soren had been waiting eight months. Aldric had been waiting two years.
The healer had clearly been waiting much longer than that.
How many people had been quietly waiting and preparing for something they believed in even when there was no proof it was coming?
---
"I need to ask you something directly," I said.
"Go ahead," he said.
"When you say the broken crown will rise again," I said. "What does that mean to you practically? What are you actually hoping for?"
---
He looked at me steadily.
"Safety," he said. "For my people. The right to exist without being hunted or enslaved or pushed off land we have as much right to as any pure blood."
"Not conquest?" I asked. "Not revenge?"
"I have twenty eight people," he said. "Revenge is not a practical goal."
---
I looked at him for a long moment.
Pip was very still beside me.
"I have seventy three people with me," I said. "Heading north to a place called the Hollow. Two days from here."
---
Something shifted in Aldric's expression at the number.
He had not expected that.
"Seventy three," he repeated.
"Thirty from a rogue camp," I said. "Forty three pushed out of their villages in the last few days. Two more we found along the way."
I met his eyes.
"And more coming every day as the soldiers push further into the inner lands."
---
He was quiet for a moment.
"The Hollow," he said quietly. "I know that name."
"Then you know what it means," I said.
"Yes," he said.
---
"Come with us," I said.
He blinked. Just once.
"Just like that?" he said.
"You have been flying that flag for two years," I said. "You drew that pendant from your grandmother's memory. You said yourself you have been waiting."
I met his eyes directly.
"I am here," I said. "I am asking."
---
Aldric looked at the drawing on the table.
Then at me.
Then at Pip who had stayed completely quiet through all of this like a person trying very hard not to breathe too loud.
"I need to talk to my people," he said.
"Of course," I said.
"Give me an hour," he said.
"We will wait," I said.
---
He left the room.
The moment the door closed Pip let out a long breath.
"That was impressive," they said.
"Was it?" I said.
"You just asked a man with twenty eight armed people to uproot his entire operation and follow a stranger," Pip said. "And he did not say no."
"He has not said yes yet either," I said.
---
I walked to the fire and stood in front of it.
My hands were cold even inside the building.
I pulled the pendant out and held it.
That feeling. Steady and patient as always.
I was starting to understand it better. It was not telling me what to do. It was more like it was confirming what I already knew.
---
"Can I ask you something?" Pip said.
"Yes," I said.
"Are you scared?" they asked.
I looked at the pendant in my hand.
"Constantly," I said.
"You do not show it," Pip said.
"Showing it helps no one," I said. "The people following me are already scared. They do not need mine on top of theirs."
---
Pip was quiet for a moment.
"That is a very lonely way to lead," they said.
I had not thought about it that way.
I turned that over in my mind.
"Maybe," I said. "But it is the only way I know how right now."
---
Pip nodded slowly.
"I think you are going to figure out other ways as you go," they said.
"What makes you say that?" I asked.
"Because you are the kind of person who learns fast," Pip said simply. "I could tell that at the river yesterday when Riven brought you in."
---
Yesterday.
It kept hitting me how short the time actually was.
One day since the healer pushed me out her back door. One day since I crossed the river. One day since the pendant chose me or whatever Soren had called it.
And somehow I was standing in a strange outpost asking armed people to follow me north.
---
The door opened.
Aldric came back in.
He looked different than when he had left. Something settled about him. Like a decision made was lighter than a decision pending.
"My people are in," he said.
---
I released a breath I had not realized I was holding.
"How long to pack up?" I asked.
"Two hours," he said. "We have done it before."
"We have seventy three people outside waiting," I said. "I will send word to bring them in to rest and eat while you prepare."
Aldric nodded.
"There is something else," he said.
---
I looked at him.
"My second in command," he said. "He will want to meet you before we move."
"Where is he?" I asked.
"He has been standing outside that door since you arrived," Aldric said.
---
I looked at the closed door.
Then at Aldric.
"He was listening?" I said.
"He listens to everything," Aldric said. "It is why he is useful."
---
Aldric opened the door.
The man outside was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and the particular expression of someone who has formed a strong opinion and is deciding whether to share it.
He was around Riven's age. Lean. Quick eyes. The kind of person who assessed everything in the first three seconds and spent the rest of the time acting on that assessment.
---
He looked at me.
"You are smaller than I expected," he said.
"You are ruder than I expected," I said. "And I had low expectations."
---
Something sparked in his eyes.
Not offense.
Amusement.
"Zev," he said. His name offered like a test passed.
"Kaia," I said.
"I know who you are," he said. He pushed off the wall and looked at Aldric. "I say we go."
Aldric looked faintly like a man who had expected a longer conversation.
"That is it?" Aldric said.
"She did not flinch when I called her small," Zev said. "And she has the pendant. What more do I need?"
---
He looked back at me.
"I have one condition," he said.
"What condition?" I asked.
"When this is all over," he said. "When you take back whatever it is you are taking back. My people get protected status. In writing. Binding."
"Aldric's people too," I said.
He blinked.
"Yes," he said. "Obviously."
"Then you have my word," I said.
---
He studied me for one more second.
Then he nodded once and walked off down the corridor calling out to people as he went.
The sound of the outpost shifting into movement followed immediately.
---
Aldric watched him go.
"He does not trust easily," he said.
"I noticed," I said.
"He trusts you," Aldric said.
"He trusts the pendant," I said.
"No," Aldric said quietly. "If it was just the pendant he would have said so."
---
I looked down the corridor where Zev had disappeared.
I thought about what Pip had said.
A very lonely way to lead.
Maybe.
But somehow the people kept coming anyway.
---
I put the pendant back in my pocket and went to find Pip.
We had seventy three people to bring in from the cold.
And two hours to rest before we moved again.
The Hollow was two days north.
And we were no longer seventy three people.
We were one hundred and one.