I didn't remember falling.
One moment, the forest was screaming my name, howling, pulsing, alive in a way that made my bones ache and the next, everything went dark, like someone had blown out a candle inside my head.
When I came to, the first thing I felt was heat.
Not the comforting kind. This heat burned beneath my skin, spreading through my veins in slow, deliberate waves. My body felt heavier, denser, as if gravity itself had shifted just for me. I tried to move and hissed in pain, my muscles protesting sharply.
"Elara."
Kael's voice cut through the haze.
I opened my eyes.
I was lying on the forest floor, leaves pressed cold against my cheek. The fog had thinned, though the air still hummed with leftover energy, like the echo of a storm. Kael knelt beside me, one hand hovering near my shoulder, his expression tight with a mixture of relief and something dangerously close to fear.
"What happened?" I asked. My throat felt raw, like I'd been screaming for hours.
"You crossed a threshold," he said carefully. "One you can't cross."
I pushed myself upright, ignoring the sharp ache that rippled through my spine. That was when I noticed it.
My hands.
They looked the same at first glance but they weren't. Faint golden lines traced my skin, just beneath the surface, glowing softly like embers beneath ash. When I flexed my fingers, the marks pulsed in response, warm and alive.
I sucked in a breath. "What did it do to me?"
Kael didn't answer right away. Instead, he glanced around the clearing, alert, listening. Only when he seemed satisfied that we were alone did he meet my gaze again.
"It didn't do anything," he said. "It woke what was already there."
A chill slid down my spine despite the heat burning through me. "You knew this would happen."
"I knew it was possible," he corrected. "I didn't think it would be this soon."
I stood on unsteady legs. The forest felt different now. Louder. Sharper. I could hear things I shouldn't hear, the creak of trees shifting miles away, the steady rhythm of Kael's heartbeat beside me. Scents flooded my senses: earth, moss, blood, wolf.
Wolf.
The realization hit me like a punch to the chest.
"This is what you are," I said quietly.
"Yes."
"And this," I gestured to myself, to the glowing marks, to the power humming under my skin, "is what I'm becoming."
Kael's jaw tightened. "Not fully. Not yet. But the mark has accepted you."
Accepted.
The word sat uneasily in my mind.
"Accepted by what?" I asked.
Before he could answer, the forest shifted again.
Not violently this time. Purposefully.
A presence pressed in around us, subtle but unmistakable. I turned slowly, every instinct on edge, and that was when I felt it pull, deep and undeniable, tugging at the mark beneath my skin.
Something wanted me to follow.
"I think we're not alone anymore," I whispered.
Kael swore under his breath. "They felt it."
"Who?"
"The elders," he said. "And others who watch from deeper places."
As if summoned by his words, figures emerged from between the trees. They moved without sound, cloaked in dark fabrics and symbols that made my head ache if I looked at them too long. Their eyes glowed faintly, not all the same color, not all the same kind.
Not all were wolves.
I took an involuntary step back.
One of them stepped forward, an older woman with silver-streaked hair and eyes like polished stone. Her gaze locked onto mine, sharp and assessing.
"So," she said, her voice echoing unnaturally, "the forest has chosen."
"I didn't choose anything," I said, forcing steel into my voice.
A faint smile curved her lips. "None of us ever do."
Kael moved slightly in front of me, protective without touching me. "She's not ready."
"The forest disagrees," the woman replied calmly. Her eyes flicked to the glowing mark beneath my skin. "The line has been crossed. The hunters move. The balance is breaking."
My heart pounded. "Everyone keeps talking in riddles. If I'm part of this now, then tell me the truth."
Silence fell.
Then the woman spoke again, slower this time. "Long ago, something was bound in Crescent Valley. Not destroyed. Not banished. Bound. And that binding was sealed by bloodlines."
My stomach dropped.
"Your bloodline," she finished.
The forest seemed to lean in.
Kael's voice was low, strained. "This is why I tried to keep you away."
I swallowed hard, the weight of everything crashing down at once. The missing people. The deaths. The hunters. The mark.
"So what happens now?" I asked.
The woman's gaze softened just a fraction. "Now, you learn what the forest took from you."
"And what it intends to give back."
The mark beneath my skin flared, bright and burning.
And deep in the woods, something ancient stirred no longer content to sleep.
The forest didn't explode into chaos.
That was the strange part.
I had expected screaming, or running, or something dramatic to match the weight of what had just been revealed. Instead, everything became unbearably still. The kind of stillness that pressed against your ears until you became aware of your own breathing, your own heartbeat, the soft pulse of something alive beneath your skin.
The mark glowed brighter.
It no longer felt like a surface thing. It wasn't just under my skin anymore it was in me. Wrapped around my ribs. Curled near my heart. Every time I inhaled, it answered, flaring faintly as if it was breathing with me.
I pressed a hand to my chest instinctively.
The elderly woman noticed.
Her eyes narrowed, not in suspicion, but in recognition. "It's anchoring," she murmured, more to herself than to anyone else. "Faster than expected."
Kael stiffened beside me. "That's not a good thing."
"It's not a bad thing either," she replied calmly. "It simply means the forest was… waiting."
"For me?" I asked.
She met my gaze. "For someone who could survive it."
That didn't make me feel better.
Around us, the other figures shifted. I noticed details I hadn't before the way some stood too rigid, as if unused to human shapes, the way others avoided looking directly at me. One of them smelled sharp and metallic, like old blood. Another carried the scent of damp stone and rain.
None of them felt normal.
"Why now?" I asked. "If my bloodline has been tied to this place for generations, why is everything breaking now?"
The elder woman studied me for a long moment, as if weighing how much truth I could carry without shattering under it.
"Because the thing that was bound is weakening," she said at last. "And because you came home."
The words settled heavily in my chest.
I hadn't meant to do any of this. I had come back for my grandmother. For obligation. For guilt. Not to trigger ancient forces and half-forgotten wars buried beneath the roots of a cursed forest.
Kael turned to me, his voice low. "This is why the disappearances started. The closer you got, the louder the forest became."
I remembered the broken locks. The missing animals. The body was placed like a warning.
It hadn't been random.
It had been anticipation.
"So what am I?" I asked quietly. "Not fully wolf. Not human. Not… whatever they are."
The elder woman took a step closer. I didn't miss the way Kael subtly shifted, ready to intervene if she crossed a line.
"You are a bridge," she said. "Between blood and beast. Between binding and release."
My stomach twisted. "That sounds like a sacrifice."
A flicker of something unreadable crossed her face. "It has been before."
The mark pulsed sharply, almost painfully, as if reacting to her words. I gasped, doubling slightly as heat surged through me, racing along my spine and settling low in my abdomen. Images flashed behind my eyes, moonlight flooding the forest, shadows running on four legs, claws tearing into earth, a scream that felt like it belonged to me and didn't all at once.
Kael grabbed my arm, steadying me. "Elara. Stay with me."
I focused on his voice. On the feel of his hand, solid and grounding. The surge faded, leaving me breathless and shaken.
"What was that?" I whispered.
"The first echo," the elder replied. "The mark responding to memory."
"Whose memory?" I demanded.
She didn't answer.
That silence told me more than words could.
"You're not telling me everything," I said, anger threading through the fear. "None of you are."
Kael's grip tightened. "Some truths can't be dropped all at once. They break people."
"I'm already breaking," I shot back. "At least give me the courtesy of knowing why."
Another howl rose in the distance closer than before.
This one wasn't wild.
It was deliberate.
Several of the figures straightened at once. The elder's calm expression finally cracked, urgency flashing in her eyes.
"They're moving faster than we thought," she said. "The hunters won't wait for the ceremony."
"Hunting what?" I asked, though I already suspected the answer.
Her gaze met mine. "You."
The forest answered again, deeper this time.
Something inside me stirred not fear, not entirely, but a sharp, unfamiliar readiness. My senses sharpened further, the world snapping into painful clarity. I could feel the paths between the trees, the hidden clearings, the places where the ground dipped or rose. I knew, without knowing how, where danger would come from.
That knowledge scared me more than anything else.
"I don't want this," I said.
Kael looked at me, something fierce and protective burning in his eyes. "I know."
"But it doesn't matter," I continued. "Does it?"
"No," the elder said softly. "It doesn't."
The figures began to withdraw, melting back into the forest one by one. The elder lingered a moment longer.
"When the moon turns," she said, "the mark will demand more of you. You can fight it. Or you can learn to stand in it."
She paused, then added, "Either way, Crescent Valley will not survive your ignorance."
And then she was gone.
The forest exhaled.
Kael released a breath I hadn't realized he'd been holding. "We need to get you out of here."
"Back to the pack house?" I asked.
"No," he said grimly. "Somewhere older. Somewhere the forest can't listen as closely."
I looked down at the fading glow beneath my skin.
Too late.
The forest already knew me.
And deep inside, something ancient knew me too knew my name, my blood, my future and it was no longer willing to wait.