Elara POV
The door had barely stopped shaking from Mira's warning when the room turned too small to breathe in.
Kaelen's rider was at the gates.
The ridge was moving.
The wolves were demanding answers.
My stomach dropped so fast I had to steady myself on the table. The linen around my hands felt too tight, too hot. Something under it pulsed in small, uneven beats — the kind that came before a new mark pushed through the skin.
Not now.
Not in front of them.
Not with a message waiting outside these walls.
Theron watched every shaky breath I took, but he didn't move closer. He stood with that stillness he used when he didn't trust himself to speak without changing something important.
"You don't have much time," he said quietly.
The words landed like a cold hand between my ribs.
