Emily Rosewood’s Point of View.
The Ruins beyond the River, ten nights after the Trial
The forest grew colder the deeper we went.
The pines here were wrong—twisted, blackened, their needles brittle as old bones. Branches knotted overhead like clutching fingers, and the moonlight itself seemed afraid to touch the ground. No owls called. No crickets sang. Even the wind had died, as though the trees were holding their breath.
Sebastian led the way, moving with that lethal silence only an Alpha could manage. I stayed half a step behind him, my hand never leaving the hilt of the moon-forged blade at my hip. Adrian ghosted along my left, close enough that the heat of his body brushed my arm with every stride. They had refused to let me walk anywhere but between them since the night Jareth co
