KAEL'S POV
The air was too still.
Even the torches lining the curved stone walls burned without their usual hiss, the flames shivering but never bending toward the damp. The chamber smelled of metal and mold — the kind of scent that clung to your teeth when you breathed too deep. I could hear Ayla's breathing behind me, quick and deliberate, as though she was forcing her lungs to obey.
The figure stood three paces away, the hood deep enough to turn their face into nothing but shadow.
"You've come far," the voice said — smooth, low, and wrong in a way that scraped along the back of my mind. "But not far enough."
My wolf shifted under my skin, restless, pacing. Let me take them, it growled in the back of my skull. One lunge, one bite—
Not here. Not with Ayla so close, the stone too tight, and the scent of something volatile in the air. I could taste it — old magic, sleeping until the wrong movement woke it.
