LOGINAstrid’s POV Fire has a sound but people only speak about how it looks, the way it devours but no one ever speaks about the sound it made when it decides you are next, the low and hungry roar like laughter dragged through smoke. I wake up sometimes with my throat tight and dry, lungs burning with a memory that refuses to stay buried, not because I was burned in it but maybe because I survived and that, perhaps, was the cruelest part. I was standing at the gate of the council hall when the memory struck again, voices drifted past me, elders discussing, healers, losses but their words blurred into noise as the past surged forward. I was a child again, I had been pulled by rough hands from my bed in the middle of the night, I remembered the feel of cold stone beneath my bare feet as they dragged me outside, I remember screaming for my sister, my older sister, the golden one and the one everyone looked at when they spoke of the future Hartmann’s first daughter. She was brave and reckl
Eve’s POV I had been walking along the edge of the eastern ridge. My fingers brushed the rough bark of the nearest tree as I tried to ground myself. I had a movement at first I thought it might be a fox or a alone wolf, probably something small and harmless until I heard a voice,someone trying not to be overheard I went closer. “Astrid?” I murmured under my breath. I crept closer. I could almost smell the forest floor then I heard her words.“You see, it isn’t as simple as removing her,” Astrid’s voice said. “She’s…central. More than any of them understand. Her presence, her blood, it’s active.The wards, the patrols, even Malik…they all respond to her now.”A shiver ran down my spine. I pressed myself against the trunk of a tree, heart hammering, and listened harder. “She doesn’t know yet,” she continued, almost teasingly. “And that makes her…predictable. But predictable can still be dangerous. I’ve made arrangements, the wards have been reinforced in key areas, the patrols misdirect
Malik’s POVI could tell something was wrong when I entered, the air in her room felt off, I looked around to be sure all was well before stepping in, my senses stretched outward the way they always did when danger lingered toI close to the skin. Moonlight filtered through the window, pale and cold, catching the edge of the bed, the chair, the half-closer journal on her bedside table. Then I saw it, and I stopped dead. The wooden planks beside her bed were torn open with deep, violent gouges etched into the surface like the earth itself had been clawed in fury. My pulse slammed hard against my ribs.“Eve,” I said, my voice already tight.She was laying on the bed, arms wrapped around herself as though she were holding something together that wanted to come apart. She looked up slowly, too slowly, and in that pause I felt it that subtle shift in her presence, the way her energy no longer sat quietly in the room but pressed outward.“With the placement of that blanket, I know you weren
Eve’s POVI was running before I knew what I was running from.The ground beneath my feet burned, no, glowed me, etched with symbols that flared brighter with every step I took, as though the earth itself resented my weight. Silver light bled through the cracks between them, crawling upward like living veins. I tried to slow down, to understand where I was, but the air tore through my lungs too sharply, tasting of storms and old blood.Behind me, something breathed, I turned and the world split open.Silver fur filled my vision, it shimmered with a time of violence that made my bond ache, each strand of fur etched with symbols that changed when I tried to fixed on them, i didnt recognize the symbols, they didn’t look the ones i had been made used to These symbols hurt to look that, they twisted when my eyes lingered on them, rearranging themselves as though offended by my attention, some curved sharply, others bled into one another, forming shapes that felt wrong, totally indifferent
Dorian’s POVThe message arrived at a time I would later on resent for its ordinariness, I was reviewing inventory tallies in the western hall, a list i had memorized well enough to notice the discrepancies without squinting when the runner appeared at the threshold.“Hartmann,” he said. “They sent word.” That alone was enough to turn my mood sour, I set the ledge Mr aside aligning it with others. “We are not taking messages from Hartmann,” I replied not looking at him. “They insisted, stating that it was relevant.” He saidNothing about Hartmann was ever just relevant, it was always strategic, always spoken with one hand extended and the other hidden behind their back. “Leave it,”I said “They said it’s happening to them too.” He said hesistantly That made my hand still, I looked up then, meeting his gaze. “What is?” He swallowed. “The losses and…the sickness.” I took the message from him at last, the parchment already creased from being folded and unfolded way too many times.
Eve’s POV I went to the river because it was the only place that still told the truth. blackthorn had many voices, but the most genuine was that of the river, it never softened itself for the elders or bristle under scrutiny the way the forest paths did I went to the river because it was the only place that still told the truth.Blackthorn had many voices, but the river did not lie. It didn’t soften itself for the elders or bristle under scrutiny the way the forest paths did. It moved as it always had unbothered about who ruled or who feared whom, if something was wrong, the river didnt hide it, if you listened close enough, if you looked well enough, it show you in ripples but today it was quiet I stepped down the familiar slope, my boots sinking slightly into the damp earth as the scent of wet moss clung to the air. The moon hung low and distant, it’s reflection stretched thin across the water like a sound that was yet to heal, I wrapped my arm around myself feeling as though the







