The ground had just closed over itself like it never split at all. But I could still feel the echo.
It wasn’t just the tremor in the dirt—it was in me.
Under my ribs.
In my blood.
Cassian didn’t speak as we walked. He didn’t have to. Every step away from that cursed clearing felt like walking toward something worse. Toward the truth we’d both been circling since the day I collapsed in his cave, gasping and broken.
The truth didn’t scare me anymore.
But I had a growing suspicion that it should.
---
We climbed for hours.
Cassian was relentless, pushing uphill with a pace meant for wolves, not humans. But I didn’t ask him to slow down.
I couldn’t.
Not when I felt this charged—like the wind was whispering names I didn’t know and my skin hummed with something bigger than fear.
We re
