I walked until my feet bled.
I didn’t know how long I had been moving, hours, maybe days. Time blurred when hunger gnawed at my stomach and fear pressed against my ribs like a second heartbeat. The forest swallowed me whole, its shadows stretching longer as the sun dipped and rose again.
Running had been easy.
Surviving was not.
The bond at my neck burned constantly, not warm, not comforting, just there. A dull, relentless ache that reminded me I wasn’t free. No matter how far I went, Kael was still tethered to me through something I couldn’t cut and didn’t understand.
I hated that.
I hated that even now, broken and alone, the bond refused to die.
By the second night, my body began to fail me.
My legs trembled when I walked. My vision swam when I stood too fast. I drank from stream
