ARTHUR’S POV
The forest still smelled like her.
That was the first thing that made my wolf snarl inside me—
the sickening way her scent lingered even though she was nowhere in the realm of the living anymore.
Tyla’s warmth clung to the trees, the ground, my hands.
But the air around me was hollow.
Dead.
Wrong.
The rift’s silver burn scarred the air where she’d disappeared, the same way lightning scars a tree. The ground beneath it smoked, faint runes flickering along the soil—ancient, lunar, and unmistakably tied to her mark.
Ash stood several feet away, chest heaving, staring at the space she had vanished into. His hands still glowed faintly with leftover silver flame that hadn’t fully receded.
But I…
I couldn’t move.
My knees dug into the dirt.
My hands were bleeding.
And m
