Shram the Reclaimer ran at the back of the pack, herding forty-three frightened rats into the alien swamp. Torches glowed behind them. Voices spat their name like a curse. Shram's teal fur bristled, but their glowing purple eyes stayed forward. Myre waited beneath this swamp, and Myre would be their kingdom. The hunters stopped at the tree line. They would not follow. The swamp belonged to stranger things. A bright insect with six painted wings and a curling stinger drifted past Shram's ear, calm as a leaf. Shram led their people to the stone door they had found days ago. Red flowers climbed the rock. Green leaves draped the roof like a living crown. A hall, half-grown into the swamp, half-built by hands long gone. This would be the center. This would be the seat. They pushed the door open together. No scout. No sacrifice. Forty-three sets of paws crossed the threshold at once. Inside, the air was cool and old. Claw marks scored the walls six feet up. Shram's people froze. Then two pinprick stars lit the dark. A cat stepped forward, ten feet tall, midnight blue, spotted with neon green. Its teeth were long. Its eyes were patient. Shram raised an empty paw. The cat tilted its head, sniffed, and sat. Not a fight. Not yet. A meeting. Shram set a stone tablet at the hall's center, pressed a paw into wet red clay, and marked it. Forty-three names would be carved around that print. The throne-hall was claimed. But the great cat watched from the shadow, and Shram knew the next word would not be theirs alone to speak.