The night air was crisp, with a chill that seemed to seep through the mist and wrap itself around everything in Ashen Hollow. Lena and Rylan were making their way back toward the cottage after another long day of magic practice. Her control over the leyline was slowly growing stronger, but there was still so much she didn’t understand. Every spell she learned seemed to awaken more questions, and each day, the leyline’s energy felt wilder, more chaotic.
As they walked along the narrow path through the forest, Lena couldn’t shake the unease that had settled in her chest since the previous night. Rylan had been tense, his senses on high alert since spotting that strange wolf near the edge of the woods. His instincts told him the wolf wasn’t just a passerby. It was a scout—a harbinger of some
