The world woke up wrong.
Not broken—unrestrained.
It began at dawn when the eastern sky should have flushed with the Moon’s slow retreat. Instead, the light came clean and sharp, unfiltered by the familiar pressure that once guided the rhythms of shifter and shrine alike. Wolves across Blackthorne paused mid-stride, mid-breath, unsettling awareness prickling under their skin.
The leash was gone.
Not cut in one clean stroke—but loosened everywhere at once.
Seers stared into mirrors that no longer answered in symbols they recognized. Priests listened for the cadence of prayer and heard their own voices echo back, unanswered. Bonds still lived. Shifts still came.
But the old permission did not.
Kael felt it first through the pack.
Not as fear.
As independence.
Wolves made decisions
