No music played that day.
No bells rang.
No fires burned in the forge.
The spiral garden was silent, but not still.
Every wolf in the valley wore grey.
Not the grey of defeat.
The grey of ashes.
The color left behind when something once loved is lost… but not forgotten.
They called it the Mourning Spiral.
And it began with a name.
Echo stood at the center of the garden, dressed in simple linen. His voice, though soft, carried through the courtyard. Around him, wolves of every age stood shoulder to shoulder, forming a circle three layers deep. The spiral etched into the ground pulsed gently beneath them.
He raised one hand.
"Today, we do not celebrate."
His voice was steady.
"We do not chant victory. We do not pretend peace is already ours. Today, we remember who we were before we started fighting."
He paused.
Then spoke the first name.
"Rhetta of the Tidewood. Burned in the silence raids. She made spiral stones from river clay."
