The forest floor beneath Lucien’s boots felt strangely warm, like walking upon the surface of a sleeping beast. Every step he took elicited a low, vibrating hum from the earth, a rhythmic pulsation that mirrored the beating heart he had felt mapped onto his own soul. Beside him, the Alpha, formerly a predator of the highest order, now moved with the wary, erratic gait of a cornered animal, his eyes darting toward every shadow.
"The trees," the Alpha rasped, his voice barely a tremor in the suffocating stillness. "They are changing. This was never part of the maps I was shown. The Architects claimed these lands were nothing but dead machinery."
"The Architects lie to keep their prisoners from wandering into the truth," Lucien replied without turning. He kept his hand pressed over the spot
