The sun came up over Libby like it meant it, washing City Hall in pale gold and throwing long shadows across the square. A flag fluttered above the front steps, edges still frayed from the years after the Fall, but colors bright and stubborn against the sky. People moved with purpose through the open doors—volunteers carrying trays, staff checking lists, a faint undercurrent of nerves and excitement running beneath all of it.
Thane climbed the steps with Gabriel at his side, Holt and Rime padding behind them. The wolves’ claws clicked softly on the stone. Kade and Varro were already inside, spreading maps across a table in the lobby, heads bowed together in quiet discussion.
Marta had insisted the doors stay open. “This isn’t a secret,” she’d said. “If we’re going to govern a valley, the valley deserves to see us walk in.”
Inside, the lobby smelled of fresh coffee, paper, and smoked meat. Volunteers had laid out bread—Holt’s latest, finally consistent enough that even Rime trusted it—and strips of venison on a platter reserved, unofficially, for the wolves.
Rime drifted toward it like a needle to a magnet. Holt bumped his shoulder. “Later,” Holt muttered. “Meeting first. No shame eat after.”
Rime’s ears drooped, but his tail kept a slow, hopeful rhythm.
Thane shrugged out of his jacket and scanned the room. His gaze caught Marta near the council chamber doors, checking off names on a clipboard. She looked up, eyes meeting his. For a moment, the years they’d fought through—snowstorms and raiders and blackouts—passed between them without a word.
“You good?” she asked.
“Standing,” he said. “That’s a start.”
Gabriel snorted quietly beside him. “You’re more than standing. You’re about to lead a regional council. Try not to look like you’d rather be elbows-deep in a phone rack.”
Thane gave him a sideways look.
The front doors opened again. A breeze chased in the smell of pine and cold road dust, followed by Tom Anderson and Tarrik.
Tom walked like a man who’d learned to trust his town to run while he was gone. Beside him, Tarrik moved with measured steadiness—no longer a coiled threat, but a grounded presence. His fur was brushed and healthy, scars visible but softened. Every step carried the weight of someone who had chosen to stay in the world instead of turning away from it.
Tom reached Thane first and held out a hand. “Morning, Thane.”
Thane took it. “Tom.”
Tom’s grin flicked wider, then he stepped aside slightly, making space as Tarrik approached.
Tarrik stopped a pace away and dipped his head—not a subservient bow, not dominance, just respect. “Alpha,” he said. His voice retained that faint feral cadence, but the words were steady. “Eureka sends honor. And thanks.”
Thane studied him for half a heartbeat—the calmer eyes, the absence of the old sneer, the way his shoulders sat level instead of hunched with anger. He remembered Tarrik on the road to banishment, and Tarrik in Eureka with maps spread out, guarding the town as fiercely as he once ruled Iron Ridge. The difference was not small.
“You’re looking good,” Thane said. “Eureka suits you.”
Tarrik’s ears ticked up, just barely. “It is… strange. No chains. Just work. Purpose.” His gaze ghosted past Thane to the maps in the lobby, then back. “Thank you. For that.”
Thane gave a short nod. “You earned it. You keep those people safe, you keep earning it.”
Tarrik’s tail moved a fraction. “I will.”
They moved aside as Nora Ellison and Seth came through the doors. Nora’s expression was bright with curiosity and a bit of mischief; Seth walked a half-step behind her, eyes sweeping the room, posture relaxed but alert. He looked solid, settled—as much Thompson Falls as the river that ran past it.
“Libby cleans up nice,” Nora said, glancing around. “Almost like you all planned this instead of winging it.”
Marta lifted her clipboard. “Don’t say things you know aren’t true, Nora. We’re very much winging it.”
Seth’s gaze found Thane. There was history there—fights, long drives, shared watchfires. Seth stepped forward and clasped Thane’s forearm.
“Good see you,” he said. “Valley feel… different now. Quieter. But not empty.”
“Quiet’s the point,” Thane said. “If we do today right, we keep it that way.”
Delegations continued to arrive. Hal Mason stepped in with folders under one arm, Spokane dust on his boots, eyes carrying too many late nights and early mornings. He clasped Thane’s hand like he was gripping a lifeline.
“Been a long road from emergency triage to council meeting,” Hal said.
“Still beats wondering who’s alive within a hundred miles,” Gabriel put in, appearing at Thane’s shoulder. “Good to see you, Hal.”
Kalispell arrived last. Nadine Carver came through the doors with three aides and the soft scent of rain off mountain stone. She carried herself like someone who had never stopped planning for a future, even when the world fell apart.
Her gaze swept the room, taking in wolves, maps, coffee, paper, the mix of worn clothes and carefully repaired civic uniforms. She reached Thane and offered her hand.
“Glad to see you again, Thane” she said.
Marta clapped her hands once. “All right. We’re as here as we’re going to get. Let’s move inside.”
The council chamber filled quickly. The room had been scrubbed and patched; sunlight spilled across the long table, catching on the polished wood and the faint scars left by years of disuse. Chairs lined the sides, with overflow seating along the walls.
Marta took the center seat at the head of the table. To her right, Thane sat as Libby’s representative, claws resting lightly on the surface, wolf medallion catching the light at his throat. Tom took the next seat, then Hal. On Marta’s left sat Nadine, then Nora, then an empty chair reserved for when they needed to pull someone else into the circle.
Behind Thane, Kade and Varro took their positions, map tubes and notepads ready. Tarrik stood behind Tom, steady and watchful. Seth settled behind Nora. Gabriel slid into a chair against the wall with a notebook of his own, there to listen and catch anything KTNY might need to carry later. Holt and Rime chose spots near the back, officially “observers,” unofficially on permanent alert for anything that might involve food, danger, or both.
The low murmur of voices faded as Marta stood.
“By showing up today,” she said, “you’ve already done the hard part. You left your home towns, your safety zones. You came here to talk about more than just surviving the week. Today we decide how this valley lives for the next ten, twenty, fifty years.” She glanced at Thane. “We’ve been reacting for a long time. Maybe this is the day we start planning.”
She sat. All eyes shifted to Thane.
He was not dressed for ceremony—just sturdy pants, a dark shirt, claws and fur bare, like always—but there was something formal in the way he held himself. When he spoke, his gravel-edged voice carried without effort.
“We’ve all bled for this valley,” Thane said. “We’ve lost people. We’ve nearly lost towns. We’ve seen what happens when one group tries to rule by fear.” His gaze flicked, not unkindly, toward Tarrik, then back to the table. “We’re not doing that. Not here. Not now. This council is not about who’s strongest. It’s about how we keep our people fed, warm, safe, and hopeful. Together.”
He rested his hands back on the table. “Let’s talk about how we keep it that way.”
They started with security. It was the most natural place for wolves and humans alike.
Varro stepped forward, unrolling a map across the table. Kade pinned it at the corners. Town names were marked in firm strokes, roads and trails spidering between them, contours of mountains and rivers sketched with practiced familiarity.
“This is the Quiet Circle,” Varro said, his voice calm and precise. “We run it now for Libby, for Northern Ferals before. We can expand.”
He tapped the loop that encircled Libby, then extended to Eureka, Kalispell, Thompson Falls, and Spokane. “Wolves patrol here. Every day. Same routes. Same eyes. No gaps.”
Thane leaned forward, claws tracing the circle without touching the page. “Right now, my pack runs most of this,” he said. “But it doesn’t have to be just us.”
Tarrik’s gaze followed the line. “Eureka take north,” he said. “I know ridges. Old Iron Ridge ground. No one hide there without me smelling.”
Seth added, “Thompson Falls run river trails. We know them best. We see boats. Tents. Quiet camps.”
Nadine nodded slowly. “Kalispell can put boots on the mountain passes. We’ve got people who never stopped hiking, even when it was stupid to do it.”
Hal rested his elbows on the table. “Spokane’s got enough survivors to pull together patrol volunteers. Not wolves, but we can run vehicles along the forest roads, keep an eye out.”
Tom glanced at Thane. “How fast can you move if something goes wrong at any one point on that circle?”
Thane’s eyes swept the map, measuring distance in miles, in hours, in lives. “If we know where we’re going?” he said. “My wolves can be anywhere on that circle inside an hour, hour and a half at worst.” He nodded toward Varro. “And with Varro coordinating, we don’t overlap, we don’t leave holes, and no one gets surprised if a pack of wolves comes tearing through town to help.”
Varro inclined his head, amber eyes thoughtful. “We write schedule,” he said. “Share copies with all towns. Everyone know when wolf or human unit near. Any town can light signal or call KTNY or phone trunk. We respond.”
“Unanimous?” Marta asked, looking around.
Hands went up around the table. Behind them, paws lifted too.
“Done,” she said. “The Quiet Circle becomes valley doctrine.”
Trade came easier than anyone expected.
Nadine laid out Kalispell’s plans to ramp up greenhouse production and grain fields. Nora spoke about the mills at Thompson Falls, the stacks of lumber already curing in the sun. Tom outlined metalwork, talk of tools and brackets, rails and stove parts. Hal offered textiles, trained teachers, long-shelved books. Marta committed Libby to continue serving as power and coordination hub, maintaining the dam, the phone lines, and the fragile web of copper that connected everything.
Thane listened, adding pieces when needed. “We’ve got spare transformers and panels in storage,” he said at one point. “Enough to bring two more small towns fully online if we plan it right.”
“You’re already planning that, aren’t you?” Marta asked.
“Maybe,” Thane said. Gabriel coughed meaningfully behind him; several people chuckled.
They spoke about shared storage for surplus, agreed to regular caravans instead of ad hoc resupply runs, and set expectations for fair trade versus emergency relief. No one wanted a repeat of the days when one town had plenty while another starved just because no one knew.
When the conversation shifted to water and the dam, Thane took the lead again.
“Libby Dam’s stable,” he said. “The BPA retirees have it running better than we ever did. They’re treating it like a job again, not a miracle. That’s good for all of us.” He nodded toward Nadine and Tom. “Upriver and downriver both matter. We keep flow predictable, share data, send people to check the station at least weekly from every town.”
Nadine folded her hands. “Kalispell will send someone once a month to look over their shoulders and bring back reports. Not because we don’t trust them—because this place matters too much to leave in one set of hands.”
“Eureka will too,” Tom said. “We’re closest to the north roads. Easier for us to swing by.”
Thane’s shoulders eased a little. “Then we never again have a dam no one understands and no one’s checking,” he said. “Good.”
Education followed. The mention of the Libby schoolhouse lit something warm in the room.
Hal slid a folder across the table. “We’ve got lesson plans, battered but readable. We can send copies. If we share teachers, we share a future. People need more than food and power. They need something to build on.”
Nadine nodded. “Kalispell has three former teachers ready to travel. They can stay in Libby for a month at a time, rotate back. Teach kids here, bring back methods and structure for our own.”
“Thompson Falls send two,” Seth said. He spoke slower for this, as if careful with each word. “Good with numbers. With little ones. They want to help. They say—” He paused, searching. “They say they tired of only surviving. Want to grow.”
Gabriel, scribbling notes, looked up with a soft smile. “We can integrate music and radio into the curriculum too. Kids already love KTNY. Might as well weaponize that for learning.”
“You just want built-in listeners,” Hal said.
Gabriel shrugged, unashamed. “Both can be true.”
Marta wrote fast. “Shared teachers, shared materials, shared standards. We make sure a child in Spokane learns the same basics as a child in Eureka or Libby.”
Thane shifted, thinking of the little drawings pinned to the cabin walls. “We do this right,” he said quietly, “and they’ll grow up thinking this is normal. Radios that work. Lights that stay on. Wolves who guard instead of hunt. That’s the whole point.”
No one argued.
When emergency response came up, it felt like an extension of what they’d already agreed to.
Hal spoke about disasters that could still come—fire, disease, structural failures. Nadine asked pointed questions about communication and redundancy. Nora and Tom talked volunteers. The wolves talked speed.
“KTNY can be our first line,” Marta said. “We set up codes. If you hear a certain tone and phrase, you know what’s happening and where. Every town sends us logs. We keep the master list.”
Thane nodded. “If something happens in Eureka, Tom calls here, KTNY broadcasts, my pack moves. Same for Kalispell, Thompson Falls, Spokane. No more hoping someone happens to be listening at the right time.”
Hal exhaled slowly. “I spent a year hoping,” he said. “I like this better.”
They nearly sailed through the agenda without friction.
Then Hal mentioned refugees.
“We’re getting signals from camps outside the valley,” he said. “Groups of twenty, forty, maybe more. They hear the phones are working again. They hear music. They want in.”
Nadine’s brow furrowed. Nora tilted her head. Tom’s jaw flexed. The room cooled a degree.
“We can’t open the gates to everyone,” Tom said carefully. “We barely stabilized what we have.”
Nora smiled, but there was no humor in it. “We also can’t leave people to freeze and starve outside and pretend we’re better than the world that died.”
“It’s not about being better,” Tom said. “It’s about not crashing what we’ve rebuilt.”
Nadine tapped her finger on the table. “It is about being better,” she said. “At least partly. But he’s not wrong about strain.”
Silence stretched. Eyes shifted toward Thane, then away, as if no one wanted to say aloud that they were waiting for the wolf to make the call.
Varro stepped forward, breaking the tension like he was stepping into one of his own battle plans. His voice didn’t rise, but it carried.
“In Iron Ridge,” he said, “Tarrik decided who lived there. Who ate. Who slept inside. All by fear. By pain.” He didn’t look at Tarrik when he said it; he looked at the mayors. “It worked. For a while. Then it broke everything.”
Tarrik’s shoulders stiffened, but he didn’t flinch away from the truth. His eyes stayed on the table.
Varro continued. “If valley closes doors now, because we have enough and they do not… we start building same walls. Different reason. Same result.”
Thane watched him for a moment, a faint pride settling under his ribs. The strategist Iron Ridge forged was not gone; he’d just turned his mind to better uses.
Tarrik spoke, finally. His voice was quieter than it had been earlier, but clearer. “Varro right,” he said. “I led by fear. I would have called these camps ‘threat.’” He glanced around the table. “You all… you led different. I see your towns. People laugh. Sleep. Walk streets not scared. We cannot become old Iron Ridge just… bigger.”
Seth shifted his weight, then nodded. “We no open doors blind,” he said. “But we not nail them shut. Check who comes. Ask questions. Give chance. Turn away only if must.”
Marta looked at Thane. “What does the Alpha Wolf of Libby think?”
Thane let the silence stretch, feeling every eye, every expectation. He thought of the ferals Sable once held, terrified of humans. Of Kade, who had lost a pack and chosen a new one. Of Tarrik eating in Eureka’s diner, laughing with Tom. Of children who would never know the sound of a starvation winter if they did this right.
“If we choose fear, we lose,” he said. “Maybe not today. Maybe not this year. But eventually, we eat ourselves from the inside. We start making lists of who deserves to be safe and who doesn’t. We’ve all seen where that leads.” His gaze settled on each mayor in turn. “We take people in. Not all at once. Not without sense. We screen. We set expectations. We put working hands where they’re needed. We watch for predators in the mix and remove them fast. But we don’t turn away families who just want to live under a roof and hear a song on the radio.”
He leaned back. “We build a valley that deserves the power we turned back on. That’s the whole point.”
Tom exhaled, some of the fight draining from his shoulders. Nora’s expression softened. Nadine’s eyes warmed and sharpened at the same time.
Hal nodded slowly. “Resettlement with rules,” he said. “Mercy with guardrails.”
Marta lifted her pen. “All in favor of structured intake, with this council establishing screening standards and shared responsibility?”
Hands went up again.
Paws followed.
When the last agenda item had been checked off and the air felt thick with decisions, Marta reached into her folder and pulled out a single sheet of paper. The edges were worn from handling, corners soft.
“I wrote this after Thane and I talked last week,” she said. “He doesn’t know that, so if you don’t like it, blame me, not him. But I’d like this to be our Accord. The thing we can point to when times get hard again and remember what we promised.”
She didn’t need to tap a glass to get silence. The room was already listening.
“We stand together as towns and as people,” she read. “We share water, food, power, knowledge, and defense. We answer each other’s calls without hesitation. We welcome the innocent and stand against cruelty. We build a world where fear has no place, and where hope speaks across every valley and ridge. We rise as one.”
When she finished, no one spoke for several breaths. The sunlight shifted on the table. Outside, faintly, a dog barked and a child laughed. Inside, the weight of the words settled like a stone in a foundation.
Tom picked up the pen first. “Eureka signs,” he said, and scrawled his name.
Nadine followed. “Kalispell signs.”
“Spokane signs,” Hal said.
“Thompson Falls signs,” Nora added, beaming.
Marta added “Libby” in careful letters.
Then it was the wolves’ turn.
Thane picked up the pen. His claws dwarfed it, but his handwriting had always been neat and deliberate. He signed simply: THANE, LIBBY PACK. He thought, briefly, of all the wolves and humans whose lives had bent to bring this moment into being. The ink on the page felt like a promise to all of them.
Kade signed next, then Varro, then Seth. Tarrik came last, his name uneven but legible, each stroke an act of will.
When he stepped back, he looked at the sheet as though it were something fragile and miraculous.
“Old life had no promises like this,” he said quietly. “Only threats. I like… this better.”
Thane rested a claw lightly against the table near the Accord. “Then we hold to it,” he said. “All of us.”
The formal meeting dissolved into smaller constellations as people stood, stretched, and drifted toward the lobby. Voices rose, lighter now. Laughter sparked here and there.
Children, released from school for the occasion, flooded in. They darted from wolf to wolf, thrusting crumpled papers upward. Rime received another “GUARD WOLF” drawing and nearly wagged himself sideways. Holt showed off his “BIG PAW TEACHER” picture to Tom and Nora with unrestrained pride.
A girl tugged on Thane’s sleeve and pushed a drawing into his hands. He unfolded it carefully.
It showed a broad-shouldered wolf standing atop a hill with a town below, tiny houses and radio towers and telephone poles all connected by a single, glowing line. Above the wolf, a child’s neat block letters read: ALPHA OF EVERYONE.
He swallowed once, then managed, “Thank you.”
“You keep us safe,” she said matter-of-factly. “Mom says you fixed the phones. And the lights. And the wolves.” She frowned. “Did you fix the wolves?”
“They did most of that themselves,” Thane said. “I just yelled a lot until we all started going the same direction.”
She giggled, satisfied, and ran off to tackle Gabriel with a request for a song.
Varro appeared at his side, clutching his own drawing. “Safe Wolf,” he said, showing it. The image was simple—a wolf standing between two children, as if nothing could pass through him that meant them harm. The words were messy but clear.
“Accurate,” Thane said.
Varro’s mouth twitched into the barest suggestion of a smile. “Feels… heavy. In good way.” He glanced toward Tarrik, who stood by the doorway, speaking quietly with Tom. “He carry new weight too.”
Tarrik caught their gaze and walked over, stopping within easy talking distance.
“Your town looks alive,” he said to Thane. “Good alive. Not desperate.”
“Your town looks the same,” Thane replied. “Tom told me about that raider trio from Canada. You handled it.”
Tarrik’s ears tipped back slightly, not in shame this time, but in modesty. “Old me would have made example. New me made warning. Enough. They ran. No dead but one who push too far.” His eyes held Thane’s. “Your way… harder, sometimes. But better.”
“It is harder,” Thane agreed. “Especially when you’re tired or angry. But it’s the only way that doesn’t end in more graves than houses.”
Tarrik nodded slowly. “I stay on that path,” he said. “Any time I start to fall… you remind me.”
“I will,” Thane said. “Or Varro will. Or half this valley will.” His tone softened. “You’re not walking it alone.”
Outside, the square was full. People from every direction had gathered when they heard the council was ending. Some had come out of curiosity, some out of hope, some simply because they couldn’t quite believe all the rumors about working phones and formal agreements and wolves who shook hands instead of hunting at the edges of town.
Marta stepped onto the top stair, holding the Accord high just long enough for people to see it. She didn’t make a speech. She didn’t need to. The sight of a single piece of paper bearing so many names said enough.
The crowd cheered anyway.
Thane joined her there, Gabriel settling on his other side. Tom, Nadine, Hal, Nora, Tarrik, Seth—one by one, they stepped out onto the steps too, forming a loose line of humans and wolves overlooking the square. Varro and Kade stood just behind Thane’s shoulders, as they so often did now, flanking the Alpha like the twin edges of a shield.
From somewhere down the block, the faint sound of KTNY drifted on the air—a song playing, not a survival broadcast, just music. Normal life. The kind of thing that would have been forgettable before the Fall and now felt like a miracle.
Thane looked out at the gathered faces—at children perched on parents’ shoulders, at traders with dust on their boots from Kalispell and Spokane, at wolves sitting comfortably among humans, claws bare and unhidden. The sun was warm on his fur. The town was alive. The valley was listening.
He didn’t raise his voice much. He didn’t need to.
“This isn’t the end of anything,” he said. “It’s the start. We didn’t fight this hard just to get back to where we were. We’re building something better. Together. Humans, wolves, towns, all of us.” He paused, letting the words settle. “We’ll make mistakes. We’ll fix them. We’ll argue. We’ll keep each other honest. But from today on… no one stands alone if they live under these mountains. Not anymore.”
The cheer that rose was not wild. It was deep. It rolled out from the steps and echoed off the brick and glass, off the repaired power lines and the KTNY antenna, off the very walls that had once heard only panic and shouted orders.
Marta smiled beside him. Gabriel wiped an eye and insisted it was just dust. Varro stood a little straighter. Seth’s tail thumped once against the stone. Tarrik lifted his head, breathing in the sound like air.
The valley had been silent once.
Now, it spoke with one voice.
And as the sun slid toward afternoon and people began to drift back to their work and their homes, the promise made inside Libby Town Hall lingered in the air like a living thing: a pact written in ink, sealed in shared effort, carried forward by wolves and humans who finally, truly, believed that the worst was behind them and that what came next could be better.
Not just for one town.
For all of them.