It rained the next night.
Not a gentle, cleansing kind of rain—but the kind that tasted like iron and burned cold against the skin. Aelira stood at the edge of the grove, barefoot and wet, the hem of her shift clinging to her thighs, mud crawling up her calves. The altar behind her throbbed with crimson light, alive now, pulsing in rhythm with something beneath the soil.
Something awake.
Something hungry.
Astren found her like that—alone, staring into the dark where the trees breathed slow and heavy. He didn’t call her name. Didn’t ask what she was doing. He knew. Because he felt it too.
The pull.
The blood-deep thrum of something old stirring between them. It wasn’t love. Not right now. It wasn’t gentle or warm or sweet. It was darker than that.
It was want. Raw. Wretched. Wild.
H
