The world felt different the deeper we went. The air grew thicker, the trees taller and darker, their branches twisting like ancient fingers trying to grab hold of us. The land was wild, unforgiving, but it wasn’t just the landscape that had changed. It was something heavier, something I could feel pressing down on us with each step.
Danger.
I didn’t need to see it to know it was there. It was in the air, in the way the shadows shifted, in the silence that followed us like a second skin. The wilds weren’t empty. Not by a long shot. The land had a pulse, a rhythm all its own. And something out there was watching us. Waiting.
Cassian walked ahead, his movements fluid, purposeful. He didn’t need to look behind him to know I was there. We’d become experts at moving together in sync, our liv
