The Covenant began as a small band of Qhacret who survived a pursuit through Vaereth's Hollow and chose to redirect their skill toward interception rather than territorial control. They learned the Shiverways as a means of moving between regions of Perma Night, not as land to claim. Their first years were marked by rescues, disputes over who counted as a threat, and uneasy cooperation with settlements that wanted protection but not the consequences of harboring fugitives. Their watershed moment came during the winterless dark known in their oral memory as the Long Pursuit. A group of hunters followed a Wildborn trail into the Shiverways, and the Covenant turned the trail back upon them. The hunters were driven away, but the effort cost the pack one of its oldest memories: no two members now recall exactly how the confrontation ended. Afterward, they formalized the rule that no one member could name a target for the pack. Decisions to hunt must be made together. Over time, the Covenant gained a reputation for appearing at the boundary between pursuer and prey, then disappearing once the vulnerable had a chance to escape. Their rescuers' work brought them into conflict with the Umbral Shepherds and occasional cooperation with the feline pack. Today they remain only eight, by choice and circumstance. Their small size lets them pass through the cracks of local power, but it also means a single broken trust could undo the whole circle.

The pack rarely gathers in one place. Its closest thing to a headquarters is a sheltered fold in the Shiverways, a seam of dim, cold air where familiar paths briefly overlap. Velkyr keeps the pack's true memories there in spoken recitations and carefully arranged objects. It is not a fortress: anyone who can find the fold can enter, though few can find their way back without guidance.