"Kieran Rourke," she says. "You have been told the terms of your testimony. Do you understand them?"
"Yes," he says. His voice is quiet.
"Speak up," she says. "Did Gideon Rourke instruct you to alter patrol route assignments?"
Kieran looks at his father across the clearing. Gideon looks back at him with an empty expression that indicates Kieran has become a liability.
Whatever Kieran was looking for in that look, he doesn't find it, and bows his head.
"Yes," he says louder. "He authorized the changes and told me which corridors to open and when."
Murmurs move through the outer ring. Brynn lets them talk, then her staff comes down with a loud clack.
"Did he tell you why?" she asks.
"He said it was to expose weaknesses in the current patrol structure." Kieran pauses. "He didn't tell me it was to route the rogue through them."
"Did he instruct you to abduct Dr. Ellis?"
"Yes."
Gideon steps forward. "The boy is confused and poorly recovered from a chemical sedative." His voice is controlled. "His account is a product of suggestion and a compromised state, not reliable testimony."
"He answered direct questions," I say.
"He answered them after hours in a holding cell with access only to people who have a stake in his answers." Gideon turns to Brynn. "Matriarch. A son testifying against a father, after detention, without independent corroboration. The council cannot accept that as sufficient."
Brynn doesn't respond immediately. She looks at the crates, at the camera Ciaran holds, at Kieran's face, at Gideon's composed and patient expression. The clearing waits.
"The physical evidence establishes a supplier connection," she says finally, "not a chain of command. Kieran's testimony establishes direction on patrol alterations, but without documented instruction it remains circumstantial." She looks at me directly, and something flickers in her amber eyes that is not indifference. "The council cannot bar the duel on this basis. The evidence is significant but not dispositive."
I stare at her mouth agape.
She holds my gaze steadily, and in that steadiness is the thing she can't say out loud: that she believes me, and she can't act on belief alone, and she's sorry this is the answer she has to give. She’s bound by pack law.
"Understood," I say.
I find Alden at the outer edge of the clearing afterward, and he takes my hand, squeezing my fingers warmly.
"It wasn't enough," I say.
"No." He looks deeply into my eyes. "But you found what there was to find, Cassidy. And it's on record now."
"I wanted to stop this before it started, to prevent this duel.” I look at the cleared ground in the middle of the ritual ring, the space that in two hours will be a fight to the death. "I couldn't."
"You handled the hunters," he says. "The perimeter is clear, the council has the crates, Kieran's testimony is recorded." He steps closer. "You did everything you could, and more than anyone asked you to."
"That's not as comforting as you think," I say.
The corner of his mouth quirks. "I know." His hand comes to the side of my face for a moment, warm and certain, and then drops. "I'm going to win this."
"I know you think that..."
"I know it," he says. "Stay at the outer ring. Don't come inside the stones."
Midnight tolls from the estate bell tower, one slow strike after another, and the sound moves through the clearing like a tide coming in. The pack stills. The torches burn but flicker in the rising wind. Gideon steps to his side of the ritual ring and faces Alden across the cleared ground, and the expression he wears is the one I've been watching him prepare for weeks.
Alden steps into the ring.
