The wind didn’t sound natural anymore.
It howled like something was hunting through it.
Cassian’s eyes narrowed. He stood perfectly still, blade half-raised, body angled toward the dark. Every part of him was waiting. Listening.
“Wolves?” I whispered.
“Not yet,” he said. “But something moved.”
I didn’t ask how he could tell.
He always could.
We’d taken everything we could carry from the outpost—scrolls, scraps, ledgers so old their pages threatened to fall apart every time I touched them. But Cassian had insisted.
“These are what they were willing to bury,” he’d said. “Which means they’re exactly what we need.”
Now we needed to run.
---
By the time we reached our fallback camp, moonlight was bleeding silver across the treetops. Cassian built a low fire, just enough for light. He
