The inner trail wasn’t about borders.
That’s what Lyra liked about it.
No cliff edges, no ravines, no shimmer of wards under pressure. Just a looping path that wound through the thicker part of Hollow Ridge’s woods, close enough to the heart of the territory that pups were sometimes allowed on it in supervised packs.
Today it was just her and Cassian.
He’d chosen the ATV instead of a truck, which she forgave only because it was one of the machines she’d bullied back into working order. The engine purred beneath them as they rolled under the trees, late afternoon light sliced into dappled bars across the path.
Cassian drove slow, one hand easy on the handlebar. Lyra sat behind him, not quite touching, the new ward-sense humming in the back of her skull like a low song.
After a while,
