The sequoia forest was too quiet, eerily so.
Della had spoken of this place often, a hidden trail deep in the heart of a beautiful forest of sequoia trees. She used to run in wolf form here, when she lived among humans.
The trees there were older than memory, their canopies rising like cathedral spires into a sky that rarely broke through the dense foliage. It had once been a place of peace. A place where she came to feel free.
Now it felt hollow.
Tina walked beside her, silent. The two moved in rhythm through the ancient grove, their boots muffled on moss-covered earth. The trees towered above them, their trunks wide enough to swallow buses, their presence so massive they seemed to whisper stories of the past.
And yet, something was missing.
