Kael (POV)
We didn’t speak when we left the cave.
There wasn’t a trail to follow—just instinct. A bend in the trees, a shift in the wind, the subtle way the frost crusted heavier where the Wilds didn’t want us to pass.
She didn’t ask where we were going.
And I didn’t tell her that I’d seen this place before.
Not in dreams. Not in maps.
In blood.
We climbed without words. Her coat hung loose again, throat bared to the cold. I didn’t offer mine. She wouldn’t have taken it. Her boots left smears where the frost turned to black earth, and I followed close behind—close enough to catch her if she slipped, far enough to let her pretend she wouldn’t.
The ridge rose sharp and slanted ahead. Not high. Just cruel.
They called it the Ridge of Knives in the old Warden texts. A place where the first of us made vows in blood. A place where the frost stayed even through fire season. And every vow was carved into the stone—bone-deep, etched with claw or blade, meant to outlive the wolves who spoke the
