The forest had changed. The dark, cold space was suddenly alive with sound—not happy sounds, but whispers. Leaves rustled without wind. The doors of tree trunks groaned and gasped with a sound like respiration. The shadows shifted as if they were listening. Lucian wordlessly sharpened his blade. Sparks danced off the edge. He wasn't preparing for war. He was getting ready for something worse: the unknown. Serakha was seated beside it, eyes shut, palms on the earth. She wasn't meditating. She was feeling. Something dark was stirring up from the ground. Not evil. Not good. Just old.
"I had a dream," she said softly.
Lucian looked up.
"I was definitely in the middle of the jungle. There was a stone circle. The trees bent inward. And among it all, the Onyx Wolf waited."
He nodded. "Do we go toward it?"
"We have to. That is where the shadow is growing."
They walked for hours, without saying anything.
