Snow is still falling, but thinner now, the wind easing just enough to let scent through.
Ash.
Blood.
Burned fur.
Talia slowed Alder instinctively. Kaela stirred beneath her skin—not loud, not demanding, but alert. Watchful. Her wolf had been unusually quiet since Talia left the mountain house. Not sulking. Not petulant. Kaela did that when she didn’t get her runs, when she felt ignored—an obnoxious two-year-old in spirit who could flood Talia with restless energy until she laughed or gave in.
This was different.
Kaela wasn’t restless.
She was grieving.
“I know,” Talia murmured under her breath. “I feel it too.”
They crested the ridge, and the world below came into view.
What had once been an outpost was now a grave without markers.
Charred beams jutted from the snow at crooked
