Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Language of the Wild
The impact of the harvester's beam had left a glass-edged crater in the mountain pass. The air smelled of burnt ozone and ancient, frozen earth. Roric remained on his knees, his sword arm shaking, his eyes locked on the creature that had just swallowed a god-killing strike and remained standing.
I stood before them, my new form—the great silver wolf—pulsing with a rhythmic, spectral light. To Elias and Roric, I was a monster of myth, a titan of smoke and starlight. But inside the wolf's mind, I was screaming. The energy of the harvester's beam was like molten lead sloshing inside my ribs, heavy and toxic. I had to force the Void within me to digest it, turning the green fire into the grey ash of my own essence.
"Easy, little flame," the collective voice of the Host whispered in the back of my skull. "Do not fight the hunger. Be the hunger."
