4: Proof in the Snow

The darkness had weight.

It did not fall over the camp like night.

Night was natural. Night belonged to the sky. Night had stars, wind, the familiar scrape of branches, the comfort of knowing dawn would eventually come whether anyone survived to see it or not.

This was different.

This darkness dropped.

One moment, the fireline burned hot enough to paint every face orange and gold. The next, every flame died at once. Torches. Coals. Lanterns. Even the little cooking fire near Mara’s tent.

Gone.

No smoke.

No fading ember.

Just black.

The kind of black that pressed against my eyes until I could not tell whether they were open or closed.

Someone screamed.

A child started crying.

A horse reared somewhere near the supply wagons, hooves striking frozen ground hard enough to send vibrations through my boots.

And through it all, the dead man whispered again.

“The Alpha wants his key back.”

His voice was wet.

Broken.

Wrong.

It did not sound like breath passing through a living throat. It sounded like mud being dragged through a grave. Like something had crawled inside the Thorncroft soldier’s corpse and was wearing what remained of him badly.

My hand tightened around my knife.

I could not see him.

I could smell him.

Blood gone sour. Wet canvas. Split flesh. The sharp, bitter scent of old magic burning through dead skin.

“Lena,” Mara called from somewhere to my left.

Her voice shook.

I turned toward her sound, but the darkness swallowed distance. She could have been five steps away or fifty.

“I’m here,” I said.

The corpse laughed.

The sound scraped across my teeth.

“So is he.”

A rush of movement cut through the black.

Fast.

Too fast.

Snow kicked up against my boots.

I spun, knife raised.

Something slammed into me.

Cold hands.

Dead hands.

The impact drove me backward, and my shoulder struck the frozen ground hard enough to steal the breath from my lungs. Fingers clamped around my throat, not warm like Damien’s had been, but icy and damp, the skin soft where death had already started loosening it from bone.

For one flashing second, I was back in Thorncrest Hall.

Damien’s hand around my throat.

Gold eyes.

Black marble.

My blood running between his fingers.

No.

Not again.

The corpse’s face hovered over mine in the darkness, visible only because one red eye burned inside its ruined skull. The other eye socket was a black, wet hole where my knife had killed him once.

Apparently once had not been enough.

His broken neck tilted, and his teeth clicked together as he smiled.

“Key,” he rasped.

I drove my knee up hard.

It hit something soft and dead.

The corpse did not even flinch.

Wonderful.

I slashed with the knife, but his hand caught my wrist and slammed it down into the snow beside my head. Pain burst through my fingers. The blade nearly fell.

“Open,” he whispered.

His thumb pressed against the pulse in my throat.

Exactly where Damien had looked.

Exactly where Damien had torn.

I felt the ghost of claws beneath the corpse’s hand.

Panic climbed into my chest, wild and choking.

Then silver light cut through the dark.

Cassian hit the corpse from the side.

Not like a man tackling another man.

Like a storm striking a tree.

The dead soldier flew off me and vanished into the black. A crack split through the camp as his body slammed into something wooden. A crate. A cart. Maybe a tree.

I sucked in air so sharply it burned.

Cassian’s hand found my arm and pulled me upright.

Even in the darkness, I could see him.

Not clearly.

Not fully.

His eyes glowed silver, casting enough cold light to carve the hard lines of his face out of the black. Shadows moved around him like smoke dragged by invisible hooks. They clung to his shoulders, curled around his hands, stretched behind him in a shape I did not want to understand.

He looked down at my throat.

His expression changed.

“You’re bleeding.”

I touched the place the corpse had grabbed.

My fingers came away wet.

Not much blood.

Enough.

The moment my blood touched the air, the dark shuddered.

Every shadow in the camp seemed to inhale.

Cassian’s jaw tightened.

“Cover it.”

“I am trying to survive first.”

“Do both.”

Even half terrified, half strangled, I almost laughed.

Then the corpse spoke from the darkness.

“Queen blood.”

The camp went silent.

The words slid between us and found every listening ear.

Queen blood.

I felt Cassian go still beside me.

I hated him for that tiny reaction.

Not because he caused it.

Because he knew what it meant.

The dead soldier crawled back into the small circle of silver light around Cassian. His limbs were wrong now. One shoulder hung lower than the other. His jaw had been knocked crooked. The canvas that had wrapped him dragged behind his body like a burial shroud that had given up.

Black veins crawled across his gray skin.

The Thorncroft brand over his heart pulsed red.

Not with life.

With command.

Selene’s magic.

I knew it before Cassian said her name.

“Selene,” he said quietly.

The corpse’s broken smile widened.

“Sister remembers you.”

The temperature dropped.

Cassian’s silver light flickered.

The corpse pushed itself to its feet. Its head lolled to one side, then snapped upright with a sound that made several people cry out.

“She says you still scream in the dark.”

The words hit Cassian like a blade to the ribs.

He did not move.

He did not speak.

But the shadows around him changed.

They sharpened.

Lengthened.

Behind him, something massive lifted its head in the dark.

I could not see it clearly, and I was glad. My mind caught pieces anyway. A crown-like jag of shadow. Shoulders too broad. Teeth where no teeth should be. A body folded inside the shape of a man, waiting for the man to stop holding it back.

Mara whispered, “What is happening?”

No one answered.

Because no one knew.

Except maybe Cassian.

And he looked like knowing hurt.

The corpse took one dragging step toward him.

“Buried king,” it whispered. “False king. Broken king.”

Cassian’s hands curled into fists.

The silver glow in his eyes flared so brightly I had to look away.

The darkness around the camp trembled.

Not from the corpse.

From him.

That was when I understood.

This thing was not only here for me.

It was here to make Cassian lose control.

To show my people whatever Damien had hinted at.

You would not want them to see what you really are.

I stepped in front of Cassian.

His hand shot out and caught my wrist.

“Lena.”

His voice was rough.

Not commanding now.

Warning.

Almost pleading.

I looked back at him.

“Do not give them what they want.”

His eyes held mine.

For a moment, the thing behind them looked less like a monster and more like a man buried under too much darkness for too long.

The corpse lunged.

I turned just as it came at me, mouth open, dead fingers reaching for my throat again.

This time, I did not dodge.

I drove my bloody hand straight into the Thorncroft brand over its heart.

The mark burned.

Pain ripped up my arm so violently my knees nearly buckled. It felt like shoving my hand into a nest of frozen needles. The corpse screamed, and the sound became a thousand sounds layered over one another.

A wolf howling.

A woman laughing.

Damien saying my name.

Selene whispering, little human.

Then the camp vanished.

I stood in another place.

Another time.

A throne room under the earth.

Roots as thick as bodies coiled around black stone pillars. Moonlight leaked from cracks in the ceiling, though there was no sky above. A crown made of shadow hovered over a throne wrapped in chains.

In front of it stood a woman.

Dark hair.

White gown.

A silver crown.

My face.

Not exactly.

Older.

Colder.

Royal in a way I had never been.

She turned toward me, and her eyes were full of grief.

“Blood of my blood,” she said.

Then the vision snapped.

I was back in the camp.

My palm still burned against the corpse’s brand.

The dead soldier’s red eye burst like a coal dropped into water.

Black smoke poured from his mouth.

He shrieked once more, high and furious, before his body collapsed inward. Skin split. Bones curled. The Thorncroft mark cracked open with a flash of silver.

Then he became ash.

Not slowly.

All at once.

A pile of black dust fell at my feet, staining the snow.

The darkness lifted.

Every flame in camp roared back to life.

People screamed at the sudden light.

I stumbled.

Cassian caught me before I hit the ground.

His arms closed around me with startling strength, one hand at my back, the other wrapping carefully around my burned wrist. His body was cold from the night but solid, real, steady in a way the world suddenly was not.

For half a breath, I let myself lean.

Just half.

Then I remembered myself and pulled back.

The camp was staring.

Of course they were.

The dead man had just risen, called me queen blood, attacked me, taunted Cassian, and turned to ash when my blood touched his brand.

Subtlety was apparently dead too.

Mara rushed forward.

Eli followed her, eyes wide.

“Lena,” Mara said, reaching for my hand.

I let her take it.

The skin of my palm was burned in the shape of the Thorncroft crest. Not deeply, but enough. Red lines crossed the older cut Black Hollow had not yet given me in this version of the story, because this version of the night had gone off the road before I even found it.

Mara’s face drained.

“What did it mean?” she whispered.

I knew what she was asking.

Queen blood.

I looked at Cassian.

He was not looking at my hand.

He was looking at the ash.

His face had gone distant and cold, as if some part of him had been dragged back underground with the dead.

“Cassian,” I said.

He blinked once.

Slowly.

Then his eyes found mine.

“What did I see?”

The question hung in the cold.

The camp waited.

I almost hated him for answering where everyone could hear.

“A memory,” he said.

Ben stepped closer, torch in hand.

“Whose memory?”

Cassian looked at me.

His voice was quiet.

“Queen Amara’s.”

A murmur moved through the humans.

Queen.

The word did not belong in our camp. It sounded absurd against torn tents and muddy boots, against ration sacks and patched blankets. Queens belonged in paintings, in castles, in stories told by people with full stomachs.

Not here.

Not me.

I laughed once.

It came out wrong.

“No.”

Cassian did not blink.

“Lena.”

“No,” I said again, sharper. “Do not say it like that makes sense.”

“It does not have to make sense to be true.”

I stepped away from him.

Snow crunched under my boots.

My burned hand throbbed in time with my pulse.

“I am human.”

“Yes.”

“I grew up in the borderlands.”

“Yes.”

“I have stolen turnips, slept in ditches, and once fought a raccoon over a piece of bread.”

Ben nodded. “She won.”

I pointed at him without looking. “Barely.”

A few nervous laughs flickered through the camp.

Good.

Let them laugh.

Let the word queen loosen its claws from the air.

Cassian’s expression did not change.

“Bloodlines survive in strange places.”

“Convenient,” I snapped.

“Dangerous,” he corrected.

That word settled better.

Dangerous made sense.

Dangerous had been following me since Damien first smiled at me through the snow.

The horn sounded again.

Farther east this time.

Damien’s horn.

The camp froze.

Mara looked toward the trees. “He is coming back?”

“No,” I said.

I listened.

The horn was moving away, not closer.

Calling.

Signaling.

Repositioning.

Damien had left, but his net had not.

He had roads to close, villages to threaten, soldiers to send, lies to polish. He did not need to stand in the camp to reach for my throat.

He had always been more patient than that.

The ash at my feet stirred in the wind.

I looked down.

Something gleamed inside it.

Small.

Silver.

I crouched carefully and brushed the ash aside with the tip of my knife.

A ring lay in the snow.

Not jewelry.

A command ring.

Black iron banded with silver, carved on the inside with runes so small they looked like scratches. A single thorn was etched across the top.

Cassian crouched beside me.

“Do not touch it.”

I paused.

“That usually means I should touch it later.”

“It is a blood-binding ring.”

I pulled my hand back.

Fine.

Sometimes he could be useful.

“What does it do?”

“It carries command from the caster to the bound body.”

“Selene.”

“Yes.”

The name tasted bitter.

Selene had not only sent a corpse.

She had sent a message.

The Alpha wants his key back.

Key.

Not woman.

Not enemy.

Not even pawn.

Key.

An object.

A thing to be turned in the right lock.

I stood and looked around the camp.

My people were pale and shaken, but alive. Children clung to blankets Damien had sent. Adults held weapons too tightly. The smell of fear mixed with smoke and blood, thick enough to coat the tongue.

They had heard everything.

There was no pretending now.

No easy version.

No simple “Damien lied and we move on.”

They had seen a dead soldier stand up.

They had heard it call me queen blood.

They had watched Cassian’s shadow turn into something monstrous.

If I did not give them direction now, fear would choose for them.

And fear was a terrible leader.

I climbed onto the back of an overturned supply crate.

The wood groaned under my boots.

Every face turned toward me.

I hated how much I wanted to run.

Not from wolves.

From their eyes.

It was one thing to be a rebel leader when the enemies were obvious and the rules were brutal but simple. Keep watch. Find food. Avoid patrols. Fight when cornered. Run when outnumbered.

This was different.

Magic.

Bloodlines.

Crowns.

Dead men with messages in their mouths.

I was not ready.

But readiness had never once saved anyone.

I lifted my burned hand.

The mark was visible even in firelight.

A few people gasped.

“My blood is something Damien wants,” I said.

My voice sounded steadier than I felt.

The camp went silent.

“I do not know everything yet. I will not pretend I do. I do not know why I saw Queen Amara. I do not know what Damien believes I can open. I do not know why Cassian Vale scares wolves badly enough to make them run.”

Several eyes flicked to Cassian.

He stood below the crate, expression unreadable.

“But I know this,” I continued. “Damien Thorncroft sent his own soldiers to attack this camp. He meant to hurt us, then return as our protector. He meant to make us grateful for surviving the danger he created.”

Mara’s eyes shone.

Ben’s jaw tightened.

Thomas looked down at the ash in the snow.

“I trusted him once,” I said.

The words left my mouth before I could stop them.

Once.

Not today.

Not this life.

But true enough.

The camp heard the pain in it.

Maybe that mattered.

“I will not ask you to trust Cassian,” I said. “I barely trust him myself.”

Cassian’s mouth twitched.

Good.

Let him enjoy that.

“I will not ask you to trust Black Hollow. I will not ask you to trust old stories, crowns, queens, or magic that speaks through dead men.”

A small laugh moved through the crowd.

Tense.

Thin.

But there.

“I am asking you to trust what you saw with your own eyes.”

I pointed to the ash.

“That was Thorncroft.”

Then to the discarded cloak Damien had given me.

“That was bait.”

Then to the dark trees.

“And whatever comes next will be worse if we stay here waiting for him to write the story.”

The camp was quiet now.

Really quiet.

Listening.

Not because of magic.

Not because of blood.

Because truth had finally entered the room, ugly and late.

I stepped down from the crate.

“We leave within the hour.”

Mara came to me first.

“Where?”

The answer sat in my mouth like a curse.

“Black Hollow.”

The reaction was immediate.

“No.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Lena, people vanish there.”

“Wolves won’t follow us into Black Hollow,” Eli said.

Every adult turned to him.

He shrank slightly.

Then lifted his chin.

“They won’t. That is why everyone says not to go there. Even wolves are scared of it.”

Smart boy.

Too smart for his age.

War did that to children.

I nodded.

“Exactly.”

Mara looked horrified. “You are agreeing with the fifteen-year-old?”

“Almost sixteen,” Eli muttered.

“No one asked,” Mara snapped.

Ben rubbed a hand over his beard.

“Black Hollow is not a hiding place. It is a story parents use to keep children from wandering north.”

Cassian spoke from beside me.

“It is more than a story.”

That did not help.

Several people backed away.

I glared at him. “Your timing needs work.”

“I warned you it was dangerous.”

“You warn like a funeral bell.”

“It is accurate.”

I looked at the others.

“Yes, Black Hollow is dangerous. So is Damien. So is staying. So is running south where Roan can cut us off before midnight. The Hollow gives us something no road can.”

Thomas frowned. “What?”

“A chance he cannot predict.”

Cassian’s eyes moved to me.

I ignored the intensity of that look.

Mostly.

Ben looked north.

The forest beyond camp seemed darker in that direction, as if the shadows there had gathered together and were waiting.

“I have lived sixty-three years without entering Black Hollow,” he said.

“You can stay.”

He gave me a wounded look. “And miss this disaster? Never.”

That helped.

Not much.

But enough.

The camp began moving.

Slowly at first, then faster as fear became work. Fear was useless when it sat in the throat. Better in the hands. Better packing bags, loading carts, tying blankets around children, burying small valuables in places no Thorncrest soldier would think to look.

The Thorncroft wagons Damien sent were stripped of anything useful. Food. Medicine. Blankets. Rope. Oil. Even the wheels from one wagon too cracked to move.

Ben oversaw the work with the solemn authority of a man stealing from someone he truly disliked.

“Take the nails too,” he told Eli.

Eli blinked. “From the wagon?”

“Especially from the wagon.”

“What if we need the wagon?”

“Then it should have been nicer to us.”

Mara, despite her fear, packed medicine with quick, practical hands. Thomas organized the walking groups. Children were woken gently and wrapped against the cold.

I stood near the edge of camp, watching the woods.

Cassian stood beside me.

Again.

“You do that a lot,” I said.

“What?”

“Stand close without asking.”

He glanced down at the space between us.

Then moved half a step away.

I should not have noticed the cold that filled the gap.

I did.

I hated that.

“Better?” he asked.

“No. Now it looks deliberate.”

His eyes flicked to mine.

The faintest smile.

Then gone.

For a moment, we watched in silence as my people dismantled the only fragile safety they had left.

Finally, I asked, “What is in Black Hollow?”

Cassian was quiet long enough that I expected another irritating non-answer.

Then he said, “A ruin.”

“That is not enough.”

“A throne.”

My stomach tightened.

“The Lycan Crown?”

“Part of it.”

Of course.

Nothing was ever simple.

“And the rest?”

His gaze remained on the northern dark.

“Damien has the Blade.”

I remembered the black metal sinking into my heart.

My throat went dry.

“And?”

“The Heart was hidden.”

“Where?”

His silence changed.

It was heavier now.

Personal.

I turned to look at him.

The firelight touched one side of his face, leaving the other in shadow. He looked carved from both, light and dark refusing to mix.

“Where, Cassian?”

His silver eyes met mine.

“Some truths need safer ground.”

I laughed softly.

“There it is. The funeral bell again.”

“If I tell you here, with Selene’s magic still close enough to taste your blood in the snow, I may as well hand Damien a map.”

That shut me up.

I did not like it.

But it shut me up.

The blood-binding ring still lay in the ash where the corpse had fallen. Cassian had covered it with a broken bowl so no one would touch it by mistake.

Selene could reach through dead men.

Could she hear through ash?

Could she smell fear through snow?

I did not know.

I hated not knowing.

Cassian looked at my burned hand.

“Wrap that.”

“I did.”

“Better.”

“You are bossy for someone I have not decided to keep.”

His gaze lifted.

“You are keeping me?”

“For now. Like a suspicious knife.”

“Useful.”

“Possibly cursed.”

“Also accurate.”

A stupid smile almost betrayed me.

I crushed it.

No.

No smiling at mysterious silver-eyed men connected to cursed forests and dead queens. That was exactly the kind of nonsense that got women killed in old stories.

I had already done dying once today.

A shout came from near the supply wagons.

Thomas waved.

“We are ready.”

Ready.

A generous word.

We were not ready.

We were cold, exhausted, hunted, carrying stolen food and old wounds into a forest everyone feared.

But the camp was emptying.

The fires burned low. The tents sagged like tired ghosts. Damien’s cloak still lay in the snow where I had dropped it, black and beautiful and poisonous.

I walked over and picked it up.

Cassian watched me.

“You should burn it.”

“I know.”

But I folded it over my arm.

Damien’s scent rose from the fur.

My stomach turned.

Then my mind sharpened.

“His scent may be useful.”

Cassian’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“Careful, Lena.”

I smiled without looking at him.

“Everyone keeps saying that to me.”

“Maybe listen eventually.”

“Maybe say something less annoying eventually.”

Ben dragged a sled past us loaded with sacks of grain and two children too sleepy to walk. “If you two are finished flirting with doom, we are leaving.”

“We are not flirting,” I said.

Cassian said nothing.

I looked at him.

He looked away.

Absolutely not.

No.

Impossible.

I pointed at Ben. “Walk.”

He chuckled and kept moving.

We left the camp just as the moon rose fully above the pines.

The world turned silver.

Snow muffled our steps. Carts creaked softly. Someone coughed. A child whimpered in sleep. Beyond that, the forest was too quiet.

The path north was narrow and half-hidden beneath brush. Few humans used it. Fewer wolves. The trees grew thicker with every mile, their branches knitting together overhead until the moon became a broken thing glimpsed between black fingers.

Behind us, the camp disappeared.

No.

Not disappeared.

Ended.

A chapter of my life closed beneath falling snow, and I did not know whether I would ever see that clearing again.

Part of me wanted to mourn it.

The rest of me knew better.

Homes were only homes until enemies learned where to find you.

We walked for hours.

Or maybe less.

Fear stretched time thin.

Eli stumbled twice but refused to ride. Mara finally threatened to tie him to the cart like luggage, and he climbed on with great offense. Ben hummed old marching songs under his breath until someone threw a mitten at him.

Cassian stayed near the back of the line, then the side, then the front. Never still. Always watching.

Not nervous.

Hunting.

Or being hunted.

I walked until my legs ached and my burned palm throbbed beneath its bandage. Damien’s cloak hung from my pack, wrapped tight so the scent would not spread.

At last, the trees ahead changed.

They grew blacker.

Not dark brown. Not shadowed green.

Black.

Their trunks rose from the snow like charred bones, smooth and tall, branches twisting overhead in shapes that looked almost deliberate. No birds nested there. No wind moved through them. The snow stopped at their border as if afraid to fall farther.

Black Hollow.

The refugees slowed.

One by one, they stopped behind me.

No one spoke.

The forest waited.

That was the only word for it.

Waited.

I could feel attention pressing from between the trees. Not eyes exactly. Something older than eyes. The same feeling I had in Thorncrest Hall under the gaze of hundreds of wolves, except this was bigger, quieter, and not impressed by bloodlines or crowns or men with pretty smiles.

Cassian came to stand beside me.

His face had gone unreadable.

“This is the border.”

I stared into the trees.

The air smelled different here.

Cold stone.

Wet earth.

Old leaves.

And something faintly metallic, like blood spilled so long ago the ground had made it part of itself.

Mara whispered behind me, “Lena.”

I knew what she was asking.

Are we really doing this?

I did not know how to answer that without lying.

So I stepped forward.

The moment my boot crossed into Black Hollow, the world stopped.

Snow froze in the air.

Not metaphorically.

Not poetically.

It froze.

Tiny white flakes hung between me and the trees, suspended like stars caught in glass. Behind me, someone gasped. A cart wheel creaked and then went silent. Even my breath seemed to pause halfway out of my lungs.

The trees turned toward me.

Not their branches.

Their trunks.

The black forest shifted with a low groan, wood grinding against frozen earth.

Cassian swore under his breath.

That was not comforting.

Roots burst from the snow behind me.

The path back began to close.

Mara screamed my name.

I spun.

Black trunks slid together between me and my people. Slow. Steady. Immovable.

“No.”

I ran toward them.

A root wrapped around my ankle and yanked me down.

My knees hit the frozen ground. Pain shot up my legs. I slashed at the root with my knife, but the blade bounced off as if striking iron.

Cassian grabbed my arm.

“Do not fight it.”

I twisted toward him. “My people are on the other side.”

“If you fight the Hollow, it will decide they are the threat.”

“Then tell it they are not.”

“It does not listen to me.”

The trees closed tighter.

Through the narrowing gap, I saw Mara’s terrified face. Eli behind her. Ben raising his hatchet at a forest that would probably swallow him whole for the insult.

My chest tightened until I could barely breathe.

No.

I had not saved them from Damien just to lose them to trees.

I pressed my burned palm against the nearest black trunk.

It was warm.

Alive.

A pulse moved beneath the bark.

Slow.

Ancient.

Beneath my bandage, the Thorncroft burn split open.

Blood seeped through the cloth.

The forest inhaled.

I felt it.

Every tree.

Every root.

Every shadow.

Cassian went still beside me.

“Lena.”

I tore the bandage away and pressed my bleeding palm flat against the bark.

“Let them in,” I whispered.

Nothing happened.

The gap narrowed.

Mara shouted, but her voice sounded far away now, muffled by wood and magic.

I pressed harder.

Blood ran down the black trunk in thin red lines.

“I said let them in.”

The forest trembled.

Something moved through the trees.

Not sound.

Recognition.

A woman’s voice whispered from everywhere and nowhere.

“Blood of my blood.”

My heart stopped.

The black trunks froze.

Then slowly, impossibly, they pulled apart.

The path opened.

Mara stood on the other side, pale and shaking.

Ben stared at me.

Eli whispered, “What the hell?”

Mara smacked the back of his head automatically.

I almost laughed.

Almost.

“Move,” I said.

No one argued.

One by one, my people crossed into Black Hollow under a canopy of frozen snow and listening trees.

The forest did not touch them.

Not while my blood marked the way.

Not while Cassian stood beside me watching the dark like he expected it to speak again.

When the last cart passed through, the path behind us sealed shut.

Black trunks locked together.

Roots stitched the snow closed.

No road.

No exit.

No way back.

Mara turned slowly toward me.

“Can you open it again?”

I looked at my bleeding palm.

Then at Cassian.

His face gave me the answer before his voice did.

“Not unless the Hollow allows it.”

A cold silence settled over the refugees.

Children clung to adults.

Adults stared at the living wall behind us.

We had escaped Damien.

And walked into a forest that might never let us leave.

Deep inside Black Hollow, something howled.

Not a wolf.

Not anything that should have had a throat.

The sound rolled through the trees, ancient and low, shaking snow from branches that had not moved in years.

Every torch went blue.

Cassian looked into the darkness.

For the first time since I met him, fear crossed his face.

Then the forest whispered my name.