The sun was setting over Ashen Hollow, casting long shadows across the mist-shrouded forest. The light filtered through the trees in soft, fading beams, but the air felt heavy with an unseen tension. Lena sat on the porch of her cottage, her thoughts still swirling with everything that had happened in the past few days. The surge of magic, the windstorm she had conjured, and the growing sense that something dangerous was looming over the town.
But tonight, there was something else.
Lena’s eyes shifted toward the treeline. The forest, normally a place of eerie stillness, felt different now. She had sensed it earlier—a faint stirring, a shift in the energy around them. And she wasn’t the only one who had noticed.
Rylan stood at the edge of the clearing, his broad figure silhouetted agains
