The forest closed around me the second I left the last flicker of torchlight behind. One moment, Ironfang Keep glowed gold in the distance; the next, ancient trees swallowed the world, their branches tangled so thick the moon only barely touched the ground.
I kept moving because stopping would mean letting the weight of everything crash down. I just couldn't, not yet. Maybe not ever.
My feet, bare, scraped, and sore from the stones and thorns, kept stumbling forward. My shoes were gone, confiscated before I even crossed the threshold, just another way to make sure I felt every bit of my exile. The sharpest pain, though, pulsed in my chest, the place where the mate bond had been—raw and aching, hollow in a way I'd never known.
Keep going, I told myself. Just keep going. I had no idea where I was headed or what I was running toward, only that I had to keep putting distance between myself and the walls that had turned on me.
A stabbing pain in my belly stopped me cold. I doubled over, hands protectively covering my stomach, dread flooding through my veins. "No," I begged the darkness, begged my child, begged whatever fate might listen. "Not now. Please."
After a few breaths, the pain faded. Not labor. Not yet. Just the toll of too much fear and not enough hope. But it was a warning, I wasn't just fighting for myself anymore.
Shelter. Water. Anything to keep us both alive through the night.
The trees here had watched centuries pass. Their roots twisted above the ground, leaving haphazard hollows and shadowy nooks. I found one an alcove beneath an old oak, just big enough for me to crawl inside.
It wasn't much, but it would have to do.
I knelt, slow and careful, and crawled into the damp hollow. Moss and leaves cushioned the earth beneath me. The space was tight, but safe enough. If something came hunting, I could still get out.
For the first time since I'd left the gates, I let myself collapse. The silence was crushing, a blanket that pressed against my ears. No voices, no laughter, no familiar sounds. Just me, alone in the dark, shivering.
Rejected. The word echoed, biting and sharp, carving itself deeper with every heartbeat.
A sob broke loose, ragged and shattering. The woman I'd been this morning would never have let anyone see her so undone. But she was gone, left bleeding on a stone platform. Only Araya remained, stripped of everything but her baby and her battered will.
I wept, quietly at first and then harder, until my whole body shook. My tears disappeared into the moss. "I'm sorry," I whispered, hand pressed to my stomach. "You deserve more than this. More than me."
No answer, but a faint flutter beneath my palm, a sign, real or imagined, that I wasn't alone.
Still here. We're still here.
That was something.
I forced myself to breathe, to steady my racing heart. Tears wouldn't fix anything. They wouldn't find me food or shelter or turn the world kind again.
A silver wash of moonlight finally pierced through the branches, painting the hollow in pale light. Selene's eye, they called it. She watched all wolves, or so the stories claimed. She'd woven me to Jasper and then watched him tear me apart.
"Why?" I asked the empty sky. "Why bind me to someone who would rather see me destroyed?"
The moon didn't answer. It never did.
I hugged my belly, the only thing left that was truly mine. Except even that, Jasper had tried to take, denying my child, calling them a bastard, cutting us both loose because it was easier than facing his own truth.
"He's wrong," I said to the baby, fierce through my tears. "You're mine. And I'll keep you safe, no matter what."
Saying it out loud steadied me. I took stock: the torn gown on my back, the little pack Millie had managed to get to me (thank gods for her). I dug through it: a strip of dried meat, a nearly empty waterskin, a stubby knife, a bit of rope, and at the very bottom, wrapped in silk, my mother's crescent moon pendant.
My chest ached as I pressed the pendant to my heart. "Thank you, Millie," I whispered, hoping she'd know somehow.
I tucked the pendant away, forced myself to eat a bit of meat, sipped the water sparingly. The baby needed every bit of it.
Night thickened, the woods alive with sounds, an owl's call, rustling leaves, distant howls that set my teeth on edge. I pressed deeper into my hiding spot, clutching the knife, protecting my belly.
Sleep was impossible. I lay awake, fighting exhaustion, whispering to my baby, to myself, to the darkness. "We'll make it," I promised. "We have to."
The moon kept its silent watch, silvering the world. Far off, something howled. For now, I was hidden, still breathing.
The first night stretched out before me, endless and cold. But I was alive. We both were.
And for now, that was enough.