AYLA'S POV
The sky shouldn't have felt strange. And yet, when we staggered out of the mountain's gullet, I tasted it like it was foreign—thin, sharp, metallic. Not freedom. Not quite.
I leaned hard against Kael, both of us still half-bent from the climb. His side bled where the false-wolf's teeth had torn into him, and though he pretended it was nothing, I felt the tremor in his steps through the bond.
"You're slowing," I murmured.
"You're heavier than you look," he shot back. His voice was rough, but the bite in it made me smile despite everything.
We'd spilled into a narrow ledge that hung high above the valley. Pine forests stretched below, cloaked in dawn's pale blue. But something about the horizon made my stomach churn—the colors were wrong. Shadows bled in streaks that shouldn't exist, violet-black smudges in the morning light. And in the air—ash, faint but unmistakable.
Kael caught me staring. "You see it too."
