The forest was wrong.
Elinora knew it the moment she stepped from the roots that concealed the Hollow’s entrance. The air was sharper, colder — but not the cold of the Hollow’s depths. This was the kind of cold that carried teeth.
Her wolf’s ears twitched inside her mind. It’s hunting.
Riven came up beside her, scanning the tree line. “We weren’t gone that long. The sun was higher when we entered.”
Kaelen crouched, his shadows spreading across the ground like spilled ink. “Either the Hollow kept us longer than we thought… or this isn’t the same forest.”
The trees were taller now, their trunks blackened like they’d been burned but still alive. The ground was littered with brittle leaves that crunched too loudly underfoot. The air carried a scent she didn’t like — wet earth, rotting woo
