She watched the fire flicker and did not look away.
The surface of the scrying basin rippled faintly, showing a fractured image of forest canopy and a small, curled shape beneath it. Ember Bloodstone lay half-conscious on cold ground, grief leaking from her like heat from a wound that refused to close.
Maelis had done her job well.
Too well, perhaps.
“She’s resisting,” one of the others said, voice threaded with irritation. “The severance should have hollowed her completely.”
The woman at the basin tilted her head, dark hair sliding over one shoulder. Her eyes—too pale to belong to any true wolf—tracked the faint surges of magic flaring and collapsing around Ember’s form.
“No,” she replied calmly. “She’s adapting.”
A ripple of displeasure moved through the chamber.
The space they o
