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Blood in the Wilds: 6

Author: Bella-Anne
last update Last Updated: 2025-05-21 01:14:21

Lira (POV)

The trees begin to thin, just enough to see the sky between their ribs.

Twilight bleeds soft across the branches, dulling everything to bone-blue and silver. But I don’t need light to know what waits ahead. I can smell it.

Smoke. Tannins. Old soap clinging to worn wool. The faintest edge of singed fur. All of it layered in a way that isn’t fresh. It’s not a fire burning now—it’s one that never fully went out. One that lives in walls. In clothes. In breath.

My stomach turns. Not hard. Just enough to make my stride falter for half a second.

Kael slows behind me. I don’t hear it in his steps—he doesn’t make any. I feel it in his breath. Just a beat of air pulled short.

I don’t turn.

The tether pulses once between us. Not urgent. Not angry. But... off. Warped in the way scent gets after too much blood has dried on the same stone.

There’s a village up ahead. I see it now—low huts, wood-smoked and sagging in places, clustered tight like they’re bracing against the wind. A single
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  • Bloodied Ashes   Scars and Sovereigns: 8

    Lira (POV)The forest was denser here. The air colder. Damp with old rain and bone-deep quiet. The roots underfoot felt too close to the surface, like the ground was holding its breath. Like it might split open at any moment and reveal something waiting underneath. I moved carefully between the trees, brushing ash from my sleeves as I passed. The air carried the scent of moss, smoke, and something faintly sour. Like decay. Like memory. The spiral was gone. I knew that. But still, I reached for it. I reached like I used to, expecting the low hum in my spine, the pressure in my gut, the throb of magic just behind my ribs. Nothing answered. Not a flicker. Not a pulse. Not even that strange warm nausea that had once marked its presence. It was like throwing a rope into a well with no bottom. Too much space. Too much breath in my lungs. Like I’d been stretched open from the inside and nothing had filled the gap. My wolf gave a soft growl in the dark of me. Not warning. Not challeng

  • Bloodied Ashes   Scars and Sovereigns: 7

    Lira (POV)The first thing I noticed was the quiet.Not the kind wrapped in comfort or sleep. No birdsong. No wind. Just… silence. Heavy. Settled into my skin like dust after fire.It took a moment to realize I wasn’t dead.My eyes peeled open slowly, lashes stiff with sweat or dried blood. The sky above me looked pale, not dawn-bright, not bone-moon silver. Just emptied out. A colorless hush. Like something had been taken from it too.I didn’t move at first. My body felt distant, like it hadn’t fully decided to belong to me again. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, and there was a copper taste threaded through my breath. I shifted my fingers. Dirt clung to them. No blood. No tether-pull. Just weight.My chest ached—not the gash I remembered, not the bruises from the ritual—but something deeper. A hollowness where something once lived. Where something once burned.I reached for it without meaning to—the bond. The tether. That bright red thread, always thrumming beneath the surfa

  • Bloodied Ashes   Scars and Sovereigns: 6

    Lira (POV)The light of that moon flattened the forest into something unrecognizable. The trees didn’t sway—they stood like painted illusions. Their limbs stiff. Their shadows swallowed. Kael’s body across from me was carved from soot and outline, not flesh. Like he didn’t belong here. Like none of us did. Even the smoke that rose from the fire moved differently now—upward, yes, but slower. As if it feared being noticed.My body ached in all its usual places—ribs, thighs, wrists. But none of it felt real under that light. It felt like I’d been drawn, not born. And maybe I had.The spiral didn’t hum. Didn’t ache. But still, I wondered if it had really left me. Or if it had only changed shape. Lifted from my ribs to the stars. Hung itself in the sky above me, watching to see what I would do now that I could no longer blame it for my choices.Behind me, Kael didn’t stir. His breath stayed steady. But it felt like he was listening. Not to me. Not to the trees. To the st

  • Bloodied Ashes   Scars and Sovereigns: 5

    Lira (POV)We lay with our backs turned to one another. Not far. Not close. The moss between us stayed cold, untouched. Kael hadn’t spoken since the Spiral quieted. Neither had I. But I knew he was awake—the way a tree knows lightning is waiting. His breathing was steady—but not soft. Too measured to be sleep. Too controlled to be peace. Like he thought if he let go of the silence, it might splinter between us again.The Bone Moon hung above, high and unblinking. Its light spilled across the forest floor in long veins of silver, catching on the broken ash clinging to his boots, to my wrists, to the places neither of us had washed clean yet. My wolf had gone still. Not in fear. Not in retreat. Just… folded down in the quiet. Listening.I used to think that silence between us meant distance. That if we weren’t pulled tight by the tether, there’d be nothing left but air. But now, it felt heavier than any bond ever had. Kael shifted once. Barely a breath. Not toward me. Not aw

  • Bloodied Ashes   Scars and Sovereigns: 4

    Lira (POV)I dozed in fragments—half-thoughts and flickers of firelight playing behind my eyelids, breath held too long, then exhaled into nothing. The cold crept up through the moss into my spine, curling in my joints, but I didn’t move. I let it happen. I let it seep into the spaces that once held fire and tether and noise.Kael didn’t speak again.He didn’t need to. His presence pressed against the air like a blade sheathed but not forgotten.My body ached—not sharp, not panicked. Just… wrong. As if someone had stitched me back together with hands that didn’t quite know where each piece belonged. Like I was a body returned from flame, not quite sure what parts were still mine.The ache pulsed low in my belly. Dull. Slow.At first I ignored it, same as the sting at my ribs, the cracked scabs on my thighs, the phantom bruises along my arms. My body was always full of pain. This should’ve been no different.But it was.This one didn’t burn. It didn’t scream. It simply was—constant, pa

  • Bloodied Ashes   Scars and Sovereigns: 3

    Lira (POV)A soft rustle first. Then the crunch of boots over dead leaves and ashen grit. He moved like a storm turning back before it struck—coiled but contained.I didn’t lift my head.Let him look. Let him see me like this: not bloodthirsty or blazing, not branded or burning. Just… broken open. Still breathing. Still unsure if that was victory or loss.His steps stopped close. Closer than I expected. Something landed near my thigh with a soft thud.I glanced.A strip of meat—dry, dark, likely smoked in some backwoods pitfire. A waterskin next to it, leather cracked but full. His hand hovered a second too long before pulling back, fingers curling into a loose fist like he hadn’t meant to hesitate.“I don’t need—” My voice caught, rasped raw against the inside of my throat. I swallowed, tasted iron. “I’m fine.”A lie.He didn’t correct me. Didn’t offer comfort. Just returned to the jagged rock he’d claimed earlier and lowered himself onto it again, slow, stiff. His jaw was tight, the

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