The sound of the severing echoed in the soul-space of every wolf present, a spiritual cataclysm that left a ringing silence in its wake. Kael’s scream had been ripped from him, a raw, physical sound of a man being torn in two. Now, he lay silent on the stone, his body curled in on itself, trembling uncontrollably.
I stood over him, my freed wrist already healing into a thin, silver scar. The dagger felt weightless in my hand. In the vast, hollow chamber of my soul where his presence had been a constant hum for years—sometimes a comfort, sometimes a cage, lately a searing brand—there was now only a profound and absolute quiet. It was the quiet of a tomb, the stillness of a winter-killed forest. It was the sound of my own survival.
The backlash was not a bolt from the heavens. It was an im
