The infirmary felt like a cage.
Aria sat on the cot long after Lila left for their next class, her fingers knotting and unknotting the thin blanket draped over her knees. The herbs burning in the bronze bowl had gone out hours ago, leaving behind only the faint, bitter smell of smoke. Every now and then, she would glance at the corner of the room the same corner where those eyes had appeared.
Nothing. Just shadows.
But she couldn't shake the feeling that something lingered, just beyond the reach of her sight. Watching. Waiting.
By the time the nurse cleared her to leave, the sun had already dipped lower in the sky, staining the campus in shades of bronze and gray. The courtyard was nearly empty, the last few students hurrying across the cobblestones. Aria pulled her hoodie tighter around her and tried to breathe normally.
Normal. She needed to be normal.
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Walking home with Lila later that evening should have felt like routine, but the town of Ravencrest had changed. The streets buzzed with unease. Lanterns burned brighter, shopkeepers locked their doors earlier, and conversations hushed when strangers passed by.
It wasn't until they stopped at the corner café for hot drinks that Aria understood why.
"…they say it was a wolf. Big as a man, with eyes like fire."
The words drifted from a group of older men gathered by the window, their voices low and urgent. Aria froze in the doorway.
"Not just one," another whispered. "Three, maybe four. My cousin swears he saw them near the treeline. Moving together."
A nervous chuckle. "Wolves? Here? The forest hasn't seen wolves in decades."
"I'm telling you," the first man insisted, slamming his mug down hard enough to slosh ale across the table. "They're back. Mark my words. And nothing good follows their kind."
Lila tugged Aria toward the counter, muttering, "Superstitious old men. Don't listen."
But Aria couldn't un-hear it. The word wolf sank into her bones like ice.
As they walked out into the misty night, Aria found herself scanning every shadow, every flicker of movement between the trees lining the street. The whispers weren't just gossip. They were warnings.
And her instincts told her they were true.
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The next morning dawned gray and restless.
Campus buzzed with rumor. Students clustered in groups, their voices carrying across the courtyard.
"—tracks in the dirt, huge ones—"
"—howling last night, I swear I heard it—"
"—hunters are already in town—"
Aria kept her head down, weaving through the crowd, but each whispered fragment seemed meant for her ears alone. Wolves. Tracks. Howls. Hunters.
When she slipped into Professor Dorian's lecture, his booming voice nearly made her flinch.
"Throughout history," he announced, "legends of wolves have served as metaphors for power, instinct, and danger. Entire civilizations feared them not just as animals, but as omens."
Aria sank into her seat, heat prickling beneath her skin. She tried to steady her breath, but her hearing betrayed her. Every scrape of chalk, every shifting body, every whispered note between classmates arrived too sharp, too close. Her senses stretched beyond the walls of the hall she swore she could hear leaves rustling outside, the flap of wings high above the roof.
And underneath it all… a heartbeat. Strong, steady. Not hers. Not Lila's. Different. Closer than it should have been.
She turned her head too fast, too obvious and her eyes landed on the far corner of the room.
Empty.
Still, the heartbeat lingered until the bell dismissed class.
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Lila tried to coax her into the café again, but Aria claimed she needed air. Instead, she wandered the narrow streets of Ravencrest, her steps carrying her toward the edge of the forest without her realizing.
The woods loomed tall and dark, their branches tangled like skeletal fingers. Even in daylight, mist clung to the undergrowth. The townsfolk avoided this path and Aria had always thought it silly superstition.
But now? Now she wasn't so sure.
She paused at the treeline, clutching the straps of her bag. The silence here was heavier, charged, as if the forest itself were holding its breath.
Then—
Snap.
A branch breaking somewhere deeper inside.
Her pulse leapt.
Aria turned sharply, eyes narrowing. The rational part of her whispered that it could be anything a deer, a stray dog, even just the wind. But another part, the part that had been dreaming of golden eyes and hearing phantom voices, knew better.
She stepped forward. Just one step. Then another.
The forest swallowed her.
The deeper she walked, the louder the whispers became.
Not voices exactly more like echoes, like the wind carrying fragments of words she couldn't fully understand. They curled around her ears, slipped beneath her skin. Her breath fogged in the cold air, though her body burned hot, every nerve on fire.
"Aria…"
She spun at the sound of her name. Her heart hammered.
No one there. Only trees, shadows, and silence.
"Aria…" The whisper again, from behind this time. Low. Rough. Hungry.
Her chest constricted. She stumbled back, eyes darting wildly.
Then movement. A shape slipping between the trees, too fast to be human, too large to be animal. Her breath caught in her throat.
And there. At the edge of her vision. Two golden eyes, glowing like molten fire.
Her knees nearly gave out. It was him. The same presence from her dreams, from the corridor, from the infirmary. Real. Here.
The eyes lingered for one heartbeat, two… before vanishing into the shadows.
Aria's body screamed to run, but her feet stayed rooted. She couldn't look away from the spot where those eyes had been, as if the forest itself had branded her.
The whispers faded. Only her pulse remained, thundering in her ears.
By the time she stumbled back into town, dusk had fallen. Lanterns glowed against the fog, and Ravencrest seemed smaller, tighter, as though the forest had pressed closer while no one was watching.
Aria told herself she would forget. Pretend she hadn't seen anything. Pretend she was normal.
But as she collapsed into bed that night, one truth pulsed louder than any lie she could muster.
The whispers weren't just rumors.
The wolves were real.
And they were watching her.