The forest grew quieter the deeper Lilith went. The air had changed, thicker, charged with something she couldn’t name. Every rustle of leaves sounded like a whisper, every gust of wind carried fragments of movement too swift to catch.
The hunter in her should have been alert, calculating, detached. But the woman beneath her armor felt every pulse of the earth like it was speaking to her bones.
The Order’s coordinates had led her to a ridge surrounded by towering black pines. The bark of the trees looked burned, scorched by heat rather than decay. Something had happened here recently. The ground bore faint tracks, heavy, clawed, deep impressions in the soil, some fresh, some fading. Not one matched the stride of an ordinary wolf.
She moved low, steady, scanning the perimeter through he
