Aria woke with the taste of smoke still clinging to her breath.
Not real smoke—no fire burned near her—but the memory of it, the echo of last night’s nightmare curling behind her ribs like a warning left unfinished. Dawn was only beginning to press pale light through the dorm windows, brushing over her desk where her sketchbook lay open, the charcoal-stained page revealing what she’d drawn in a frantic haze:
A shattered forest.
A collapsed watchtower.
Wolves running—no, fleeing.
Her hands trembled.
It hadn’t been the first vision, but it was the clearest. And visions that clear never came without a reason.
Aria slipped off her bed and threw on her cardigan, tying her hair back before stepping out into the hall. Students were already moving through the building, but the tension in th
