The forest stopped feeling neutral.
Ember didn’t notice it all at once. There was no sudden chill, no dramatic shift in the wind. Just a creeping awareness that the silence had weight now—that it leaned toward her instead of simply existing around her.
The echo in her chest pulsed again.
Stronger.
She slowed, boots crunching softly over dead leaves, every instinct screaming at her to stop moving even as her body continued forward. The pull wasn’t forceful. That was the worst part of it. It didn’t drag her.
It invited her.
Vespera paced beneath her skin, agitation bleeding through their link. This place is wrong, her wolf warned. It’s layered. Watched.
“I know,” Ember whispered. “But it’s the first thing that’s felt… steady.”
The truth tasted bitter.
Grief had hollowed her out, scr
