Morning did not break all at once.
It crept in carefully, pale light seeping between the trees as if the day itself were cautious of me. The world felt thinner at this hour, quieter, every sound softened by mist and dew. I walked with measured steps, following the subtle pull in my chest that had begun sometime before dawn—neither command nor warning, just direction.
The wolf was alert now, no longer silent, no longer loud.
Present.
This place listens, it murmured.
I slowed, testing the ground with my heel. The land dipped gently toward a low basin where the grass grew darker and thicker, heavy with moisture. Stone markers rose there—old ones, half-sunken, smoothed by time. They weren’t arranged in a circle like the valley stones had been. These felt… incidental. Left behind.
“I didn
