Chapter 92
Kellan
The moment we step out of the cave, the sunlight hits like a slap.
Too bright.
Too clean.
Too pure for the hell we just crawled out of.
For a heartbeat, none of us move. We stand at the mouth of the cave, covered in blood and soot, blinking against the harsh daylight like creatures dragged from the Underworld. The air tastes different out here—sharper, colder, painfully fresh after hours breathing in iron and death. Some wolves collapse to their knees, gasping like they've broken through the surface after nearly drowning. Others throw their heads back to gulp down the wind as if afraid it might disappear.
I don't know how long we were in that place.
Minutes, hours—it blurred into one endless stretch of violence and screaming and shadows. Time dissolves in war; all that's left is instinct and survival. But now, standing in the sun again, the weight of it starts to settle.
And with it, the losses.
I count the wolves silently.
