The first sign was in the dream.
Not like the others—no fire, no claws, no Magnus Holt dragging her back to the girl she used to be.
This one was quiet.
She stood in a dark forest, barefoot, the earth beneath her cold and damp. Fog coiled around her ankles. The trees whispered in a language she couldn’t understand—but knew somehow.
And then she heard it.
Her name.
Not spoken. Not shouted.
Breathed.
Aria…
She turned, heart racing.
A woman stood in the clearing.
Tall, with moon-pale skin and long hair like woven smoke. Her eyes glowed faint violet—the same color that burned in Aria’s when her wolf came through. A scar ran down her collarbone, old and deep.
“You wear the name,” the woman said, voice like water over stone. “But you’ve yet to claim its truth.”
“Who are you?” Aria a
