By the time the truck finally left the main road, Aria’s legs were numb and her thoughts worse.
They’d driven for hours—past fields and small towns, farther from Silvercrest with every mile. The bond in her chest stretched thinner, hurting in a dull, constant way.
“Almost there,” the driver said. “You’ll want to see this part.”
He turned onto a narrow track. Pines closed around them, tall and dark, branches heavy with frost. The air through the cracked window smelled cleaner. Wilder.
She breathed deeper than she had since she left.
The trees opened suddenly onto a clearing.
Nightfall lay in a shallow hollow: low wooden houses in a loose circle around an open space, smoke rising from chimneys, wolves moving between buildings with buckets, bundles, quiet purpose. No high walls, no bann
