The first sign came with the wind.
If carried the smell of iron and smoke, sharp enough to wake me from sleep. Outside, the forest whispered as if a storm were coming, but the branches didn’t move. The air itself felt bruised.
Downstairs, Father was already dressed for patrol. He didn’t have to speak; the tension in his jaw said enough.
“Reports from the western ridge,” he said.
“Shadows moving against the moonlight. No bodies-just shapes.”
Lilly joined us, pale and silent. “I heard them,she whispered. “Two howls at once. One sounded…wrong.”
I didn’t ask how she knew. I’d felt it too-an echo pulsing through my mark, faint but certain. Carter’s rhythm.
James slammed his fist against the table.
“We should hunt him before he hunts us.”
Father shook his head. “Not yet. He’s changed.
