Night had barely cooled the stone corridors when Lina slipped from her quarters, the soft scrape of her boots muffled by thick furs. The air tasted of damp ink and dust—a promise of hidden knowledge. She followed Myles's counsel through winding passages until she stood before the Echo Vault's rune-etched door. With a whispered incantation, the sigils glowed silver, and the door eased inward.
Inside, torchlight danced across towering shelves crammed with outlawed journals, scrolls bound in wolf-hide, and bell jars cradling bone fragments and preserved fur. The scent was heady: ink steeped in moonlight. Myles, spectacles perched on his nose, guided her to a carved stone table.
“Study these," he said, passing her a parchment of crystalline diagrams. “They map the mechanics of wolf-soul frac
