POV: Aria
The silence in the forest wasn’t peaceful anymore—it was expectant. Heavy, like the earth itself was holding its breath.
I stood at the border of Shadowclaw’s inner territory, eyes fixed on the trail of smoke curling into the sky from the sacred flames that guarded Kael’s quarters. My feet wouldn’t move. Not yet. My wolf, though fractured and distant, stirred faintly inside me. She wasn’t whole, but she knew something was about to change.
The confrontation at the training grounds hadn’t left my mind since it happened. Kael’s words—his confusion and anger—kept echoing through me, twisting into everything I thought I knew about our bond. I had forced it to awaken, sacrificed a part of myself for it, and still, I stood alone.
But he was feeling it now. I could see it in the way
