POV: Kael
⸻
By the time I realized she’d run, the ash had turned to ice.
I tore through the east gate before Ashen could stop me, claws still dripping Faithful blood, the taste of her kiss raw on my mouth.
I felt her in my chest — not the bond we’d spent months reforging through blood and ruin, but something older. Thinner. A fraying thread wrapped around the mark beneath my ribs.
She was pulling away from me — not by choice, but by design.
The Veil didn’t want to kill her.
It wanted to keep her.
And it wanted me to watch.
⸻
The trees blurred.
My wolf took the lead — claws digging furrows in frozen ground, lungs burning from cold that tasted like iron and regret. Every root I leapt over whispered her name. Every broken branch shivered with the echo of her breath.
Aria. Aria. Ar
