The wind carried the scent of ash and wildflowers—an impossible mix that made Isabella’s stomach twist with recognition she couldn’t place. It wasn’t a memory so much as a bruise against her soul, something ancient and instinctive, buried beneath lifetimes. She and Kael walked side by side through the thickening woods, each footfall muffled by moss and memory. Neither spoke. Words would have only clouded the air already dense with what waited ahead.
The sun bled orange behind the trees, low and sluggish, as if reluctant to follow them into Wildcradle.
By the time they reached the outer edge of the glade, the world had grown too quiet. Even the birds had fled. The forest stopped abruptly, like it too feared the clearing ahead. What stood before them was not a ruin, but a wound—an open sca
