The land didn’t care that I had survived.
That was the first truth hunger taught me.
By the time the light began to thin and the sun slid lower toward the horizon, my legs were shaking in a way that had nothing to do with fear. The wild energy that had carried me out of the valley dulled into something heavier, more insistent. Not weakness exactly — but demand.
My body wanted things.
Food.
Warmth.
Rest.
Power hummed beneath my skin, steady and alive, but it did nothing to quiet the hollow ache gnawing at my stomach. Each step sent a dull reminder through my muscles, not pain, but depletion — the cost of running, healing, becoming.
I slowed, scanning the unfamiliar land around me.
The forest had thinned into open, uneven ground dotted with stone and scrub. Wind swept freely across
