Kora’s POV
The following morning, the air was thick with silence. The kind of silence that hums with exhaustion and unspoken fears. The packhouse was quieter than I’d ever heard it. Wolves limped in and out of the infirmary; healers whispered over wounds that would take more than herbs to mend. Even the children, usually running wild through the courtyard, were subdued. They played close to their mothers’ feet, their laughter small and uncertain.
I sat on the porch steps, a blanket wrapped tightly around my shoulders. The fire from last night still smoldered behind my ribs, but it wasn’t pain—it was a kind of still heat, the kind that came after you’ve burned through everything and what’s left is only the truth.
I could feel him before I saw him. Edward’s scent reached me first—pine smo
