The dream started as always.
There was a solid, silvery fog like moonlight covering Evelyn from head to toe. She was barefoot in a forest that was both real and unreal, whose trees stood impossibly tall and leaves made sounds she could never understand. Darker forms moved between the trees, slick and never still, until finally the beast she had been waiting for appeared.
It was the wolf.
It progressed, with hair as dark as night and eyes that shone with light not of the world. Its shape had always been unclear, as if her mind was unwilling to delineate it in crisp definition. But this evening the fog cleared. Muscles moved beneath the fur, each line sharp and each step quiet but brimful of power. The wolf stopped in front of her, close enough that it breathed against her face.
And then, for the first time, spoke.
"You are the flame chosen to live longer than the king."
