(Aldric POV — third person)

The Council chamber was built for eleven. Stone walls. A circular table of polished oak. Eleven chairs, each carved with the territorial crest of the elder who occupied it. The room was older than anyone alive — older than the current Council, older than the governing charter, older than the system of territorial sovereignty that every wolf in the world believed was the natural order.

Aldric stood at his place. He didn't sit. When you were about to ask for something that hadn't been asked for in three hundred years, you stood.

The other ten elders watched him. Some with curiosity. Some with the careful blankness of leaders who didn't show their positions until they understood the cost.

"I'm requesting a Category Zero designation," Aldric said, "for the minor child known as Lily. Daughter of the rogue Alpha Rhea, formerly of Silverpine. Currently residing in the Ashenmoor territory."

The murmur that moved through the room was low and brief. Category Zero. The designation that sat at the top of Council's threat classification system — above territorial disputes, above rogue uprisings, above military conflicts. Reserved for threats that endangered not a territory or a pack but the pack system itself.

It hadn't been used in three hundred years.

"On what basis?" Elder Davan asked. He was the oldest on the Council — seventy-two, southern territory, the kind of man who required evidence the way other people required air.

Aldric had prepared for this. He'd been preparing for months. The evidence was organized in a leather folder — photographs, field reports, intelligence assessments, delegate testimony. Each document selected for impact. Each piece arranged to build the case not through emotion but through accumulation.

He started with the photographs. The same three from the siege, eight months ago. Silver eyes. The frozen radius. A child in her mother's arms, surrounded by a field of wolves who couldn't move.

"This was recorded during the Ashenmoor siege," Aldric said. "The child — then six years old — produced a wolf response that paralyzed trained combat wolves within a thirty-meter radius. No physical contact. No vocal command. Her wolf reached out and overrode their wolves' motor functions."

He set down the second set of documents. Darya's intelligence reports — the ones recovered from her communication device before her expulsion.

"These are field intelligence reports from an embedded operative who spent six weeks inside the Ashenmoor territory. She documented the child's daily behavior. The child can sense the emotional state of any wolf within the compound — approximately two hundred and sixty wolves. She identified the operative by sensing that her wolf's behavior didn't match her stated intentions."

"A six-year-old identified a trained intelligence agent," Elder Mira said. Not a question. A restatement, delivered in the flat tone of someone who wanted to hear how it sounded out loud.

"Seven, by now. And yes. The operative's cover was flawless. Background verified. Behavioral integration complete. The child felt the dissonance in her wolf from across the compound."

He set down the third document. Callum's report — the delegate testimony from the neutral pack visit.

"This arrived last week. A neutral pack sent delegates to assess the Ashenmoor alliance. During the visit, the child was in the yard. She waved at two of the delegates. Both wolves — experienced, stable, mid-rank — reported an involuntary wolf response. They described it as a 'loosening.' A 'warmth.' One delegate reported that her wolf felt as though a dormant capacity had been temporarily activated."

The chamber was quiet. Not the quiet of attention — the quiet of calculation. Eleven people running the same equation in their heads and arriving at the same number.

"This child," Aldric said, "can override Alpha commands. She can bond with any wolf regardless of pack membership. She can activate dormant bonding capacity in wolves who have never displayed it. She is seven years old. She has no training. Everything she does is instinctive."

He paused. Let the weight settle.

"The reports we have suggest these abilities are expanding. The rate of expansion is unknown, because our observation capability was eliminated when the embedded operative was identified. But the trajectory is consistent with the fragmentary records we have on pre-Council wolf anomalies."

"You're describing a Firstborn," Elder Davan said.

The word landed in the room like a stone dropped into still water. Firstborn. The word that appeared in Council's oldest classifications but not in its official history. The word that every elder knew and none of them used in public.

"I'm describing a child whose wolf capabilities match the historical profile of a Firstborn carrier," Aldric said. "Whether she is one — whether the bloodline still exists — is a question I can't answer with the data I have. But the functional characteristics are identical."

"What are you asking for?" Elder Mira said.

"Authorization for direct intervention. Capture. Containment. Assessment of capabilities under controlled conditions."

"And the mother?"

"The mother is secondary. The child is the primary concern."

Another silence. Longer this time. The kind of silence where positions were being assembled behind faces that showed nothing.

"Category Zero authorizes any action," Elder Davan said. "Including lethal force. You understand what you're requesting."

"I understand what I'm requesting." Aldric's voice didn't change. "I'm also requesting restraint in the initial approach. The child is seven years old. Her abilities are instinctive. If she's captured and contained properly, she can be studied. We can learn the extent of what she carries and determine whether it can be controlled."

"And if it can't?"

Aldric looked at Elder Davan. The oldest man on the Council, who had served for forty years and understood better than anyone what Category Zero meant.