The light bleeding from the hollow tree wasn’t warm.
It was cold—not in temperature, but in memory. As if the past itself was spilling out from the cracked trunk, reaching for skin, for spirit, for something it had been denied.
Quinn cradled Rowan in his arms, the boy limp, silent, his pulse whisper-soft against his neck.
“Rowan,” he choked, pressing a kiss to his temple. “Baby, please—come back to me—”
Jace was on his knees beside them, his hand trembling as it hovered over Rowan’s chest. “He’s breathing. He’s—barely, but—he’s still here.”
Kairis knelt beside them, voice distant. “He’s not alone in there.”
Quinn’s head snapped up. “What does that mean?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she pressed her palm to the earth beneath the tree, whispering a litany older than the pack
