POV: Aria
The forest was unnaturally quiet as I stepped into the glade before dawn. Mist clung to the earth like breath held too long, and the sacred tree loomed above me—silent, ancient, waiting.
I hadn’t told Kael where I was going. I couldn’t. Something in the dream had whispered: This is yours to face. The words had etched themselves into my chest like a promise I didn’t remember making.
I knelt and pressed both hands against the bark. My wolf stirred restlessly inside me, uneased. I whispered the old prayer I’d read in the Watcher’s journal. And then, just as it had in the dream, the ground trembled beneath me.
The bark split open.
Roots curled aside, revealing a tunnel of woven branches and thick, mossy walls descending beneath the tree. I hesitated only a moment before stepping
