AYLA – POV
My boots squelched in blood and wet ash. Not mine. Not this time.
I hadn't slept in two days. My fingers were raw from stitching flesh, burning out venom, grinding poultices into wolf-skin with the heel of my hand. The healers were stretched too thin. Rylan was half-conscious. Veyra hadn't spoken since she saw the rune on the hawk's chest.
I kept going. Because if I stopped—I'd remember what it felt like to burn with someone else's scent smeared over my soul.
We moved the wounded into the ridge caverns. Old bones whispered from the walls. Moonlight didn't reach this far, but I didn't need it. The Loom inside me hummed. My wolf—silent since Cassia's fall—paced again.
They were coming.
The First Fang.
Kael stood outside the entrance, shoulders tense, gaze fixed on the black treeline. He hadn't shifted in hours. His aura was wound so tight it vibrated.
When I joined him, he didn't look at me.
"They're moving in packs," he said. "Three flanks. Not rogues. Not marked."
