Ruby's POV
The storm had finally passed.
But the Wildlands didn’t sleep.
The rain had stopped falling, tapering off like a sigh, leaving the world soaked and shivering. Thunder grumbled in the distance, low and long, like it had lost interest in me, like it had said its piece and now wandered off to torment someone else.
But the forest... the forest didn’t return to silence.
It came alive in the storm’s absence.
Not with peace.
With breath.
The kind that fills the air right before something happens. The kind that makes your skin prickle.
The trees creaked above me, their branches heavy with rain, their roots groaning beneath the weight of soaked earth. Hushed, slithering sounds threaded through the underbrush—subtle, deliberate, just loud enough to remind me I wasn’t alone. Somew
