Celeste
We rode hard for hours without speaking.
Nobody had found Josh on the road. Nobody had passed a rider or a messenger or even a riderless horse coming the other way. The silence between us was thick with things no one was willing to say out loud, and the farther we rode without news, the heavier the quiet became.
Night was falling by the time we reached the stretch of field where I had spent my first night outside Aderian. The same field. The same tree line. The same patch of grass where I had woken from my first nightmare with the Shadow Gladius warm in my hand and terror in my throat.
We dismounted and the men began setting up camp in silence. I walked out into the open grass and sat down.
My wolf stirred inside me.
She had been stirring all day. Small movements, small adjus
