Six months had a way of passing like a breath, slow when you counted the days, swift when you turned to look back. I sat on the patio at my parents’ house, the familiar stretch of Bloodhowl land laid out before me, the air rich with pine and summer warmth. The boards beneath my feet had been sanded smooth since I was a girl, and still, I could trace the old grooves, the wear of countless evenings like this one. My mother fussed at my side, her arms wrapped tight around Alaric. My son. Our son. He had Thorne’s storm-dark eyes and my mouth, though most days my mother claimed every inch of him belonged to her. He squirmed now in her lap, pudgy hands reaching for the braid slipping over her shoulder, and she let him tangle it without complaint.
“You don’t know how lucky you are,” my mother co
