I woke up choking on silence.
Not darkness. Not light. Just endless gray stretching in every direction, soft as ash, heavy as stone. My body ached, my throat raw where her fingers had pressed. When I touched my skin, it was hot, fevered, like her grip still lingered.
The child was gone.
But I wasn’t alone.
Dozens of tall, motionless figures with smoke-blurred shapes stood in the ash. Not wolves. Not human. Something halfway. When I pushed myself to my knees, their heads tilted as one.
At their feet, my shadows trembled. Not resisting. Bowing.
"No." I whispered, with a sharp rise in panic in my chest. I tried to pull back but they clung to the ash-figures like threads woven too tightly to cut.
One stepped closer. Its voice was every voice I’d ever heard, layered and hollow.
“Yo
