Elara’s POV
Night inside the fortress felt different.
The stone halls grew quieter, the torches burned lower, and the air carried a strange kind of energy that I couldn’t quite explain.
It wasn’t peaceful.
It was restless.
I had tried to sleep.
Truly tried.
But the moment I closed my eyes, the same feeling returned.
The pull.
It tugged faintly beneath my collarbone, warm and persistent like a thread tied to something far away.
At first I thought it was the mark again.
But the longer I lay in bed, the more I realized it was something else.
Something calling.
A low sound drifted through the open window.
A howl.
Soft.
Distant.
My breath caught.
The sound wrapped around my chest like invisible fingers, tightening gently as another howl answered it from somewhere deeper in the
