The night air was cool, thick with pine and loam.
Her heart still raced. Her thoughts twisted, tangled like roots.
She kept walking until she reached the edge of the forest, where the trees grew older, their trunks wide and gnarled with age. An ancient oak loomed above her, its branches veiled in moss like draped cloth.
She sat on a stone at its base, curling her knees to her chest, fingers wound tight in the edges of her shawl.
She closed her eyes.
The images came back—sharper now.
The flames, licking through trees.
Her mother’s voice, soft but urgent.
That final promise: Run. Live.
And beneath it all, a strange pull, wild and deep, like a tide turning inside her.
It throbbed in her ribs, behind her eyes.
“I’m not a wolf,” she whispered.
She didn’t know what she was.
But she
