I didn't tell anyone I was going back to the forest.
Not Kael. Not Lyric. Not even my grandmother, though I knew she would sense it somehow, the way she always seemed to know when I crossed lines she had drawn long before I understood them.
The decision wasn't sudden. It had been growing in me for days, fed by unanswered questions, by half-truths, by the way everyone spoke around the truth instead of to it. By the way the forest watched me in return.
That morning, the sky hung low and gray, clouds pressing down like a warning. The pack house was restless. I could feel it in the air shifting footsteps, hushed conversations, doors opening and closing too often.
Someone was missing again.
I caught fragments of it as I moved through the hallways.
"…didn't come back at dawn"
"…last seen near the eastern ridge"
"…Kael's furious"
No one finished their sentences when I passed.
That silence followed me outside.
I walked fast, my boots crunching against gravel, my breath fogging in front of me. The closer I got to the tree line, the more familiar that tight, electric feeling became. It settled under my skin like anticipation and fear braided together.
I crossed the invisible boundary without ceremony.
The forest welcomed me the same way it always did with watchful quiet.
The deeper I went, the more wrong things felt. Not loud wrong. Subtle wrong. The birds were gone. The wind moved without sound. Even my footsteps seemed muted, like the ground was swallowing the noise.
I followed instinct more than direction.
Broken branches appeared first, snapped cleanly, too high up to be caused by falling trees. Then disturbed earth, clawed and churned as though something massive had dug into it.
My stomach tightened.
That was when I smelled it.
Blood.
Not fresh enough to be warm, but not old either. Metallic and sharp, carried on the damp air. I slowed, forcing myself to breathe through my mouth, my heart pounding so hard I was sure the forest could hear it.
Then I saw him.
A body lay half-hidden near the base of a massive cedar tree. Not torn apart. Not scattered.
Placed.
He was young, no older than twenty, if that. His eyes stared sightlessly at the canopy above, frozen in surprise. His chest bore deep wounds, too precise to be animal bites, too brutal to be human.
I dropped to my knees before I could stop myself.
My hands shook as I checked for a pulse, even though I already knew there wouldn't be one. His skin was cold. Too cold.
This wasn't a random killing.
This was a message.
A branch snapped behind me.
I spun around, heart in my throat.
Kael stood several feet away, his expression dark with something dangerously close to panic.
"What did you do?" he demanded.
"I found him," I shot back. "Why didn't you tell me people were dying?"
His jaw clenched. "Because knowing puts you in danger."
"I'm already in danger," I said, gesturing to the body. "This doesn't scare me away. It pulls me in."
He stared at me like he was seeing me clearly for the first time.
"You shouldn't have come," he said quietly.
"And you shouldn't keep deciding for me."
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. The forest pressed in around us, heavy and listening.
Finally, Kael exhaled, long and slow.
"This wasn't supposed to happen yet," he admitted.
"Yet?" I echoed.
He looked away. "The line was crossed too early."
That sent a chill straight through me.
"What line?"
He turned back to me, and something in his eyes shifted resolve hardening over fear.
"The one between watching and hunting."
I swallowed. "Who's hunting?"
Kael hesitated.
Then he said it.
"Something that knows who you are."
My pulse thundered in my ears. "I don't even know who I am."
"That's the problem," he replied. "You're waking up."
The words settled into me, heavy and unsettling.
"What did it take?" I asked softly, looking back at the body. "What did the forest take this time?"
Kael's voice dropped. "It took restraint."
The body was taken before nightfall, carried away by men who didn't speak and wouldn't look at me. They moved with grim efficiency, like this was not the first time they had done this and worse, like they expected to do it again.
I watched from the edge of the clearing, numb and burning at the same time. Somewhere between fear and anger, something sharp lodged itself inside my chest and refused to leave.
The forest closed in behind them as they left, swallowing the evidence, erasing the disturbance as if nothing had happened.
But I knew better now.
That night, the pack gathered.
Not for mourning. For preparation.
Weapons were laid out across the long tablesilver-edged blades, carved staffs, charms etched with symbols I recognized from my grandmother's journals. The air buzzed with tension, fear barely contained.
I watched from the edge, unnoticed but not unseen.
Lyric approached me quietly. "You shouldn't have seen that."
"I needed to," I replied.
She studied my face. "You're changing."
"I think I always was."
Her expression softened, just for a moment, before she glanced away. "The forest doesn't take kindly to that."
"Neither do I," I said.
The howls started after dark.
Not one.
Many.
They rose from different points in the forest, overlapping, calling to one another. My chest tightened painfully with each sound, like something inside me was straining toward them.
I pressed a hand to my ribs, startled by the sensation. It wasn't painful. It was recognition.
Kael met my gaze across the room.
This time, he didn't look away.
"You need to leave Crescent Valley," he said.
I shook my head slowly. "No."
His voice hardened. "This isn't a request."
"And I'm not a child you can send away."
Silence fell.
The howls cut off abruptly, replaced by something deeper. Louder. Closer.
Then, quietly, dangerously, he said, "If you stay, you'll be claimed by this war."
I took a step toward him. "Then stop pretending I'm not already part of it."
The air shifted. The candles flickered. Somewhere in the distance, a tree cracked under immense pressure.
The howls grew louder.
Closer.
And somewhere deep within me, something answered back.
It wasn't a sound.
It wasn't a voice.
It was a pull.
A certainty.
I didn't know what the forest had taken from the others.
But I knew what it was coming for next.
Me.