Dawn came thin and gray, the kind of light that made the world look half-finished.
Lira’s body felt the hour before her mind did. She woke to the faint chill that seeped through the infirmary’s stone walls, to the soft creak of bedsprings, to the low murmur of Mara’s voice somewhere near the front.
For a moment she lay still, staring up at the ceiling beams. Her heart beat slow and heavy, like it was making up its mind.
Today.
No dream clung to her this time. No river. No blood. Just that familiar, hollow hum inside, like a vessel waiting to be filled—or cracked.
“Up,” Mara said from the foot of her cot.
Lira jerked, hand flying to her collar. “I—sorry. I was—”
“Sleeping,” Mara said. “Like I told you to. Miraculous.” She tossed a bundle onto the bed. “Wear this.”
Lira sat up, catching it. Soft leather brushed her fingers. She unfolded the bundle and blinked.
Pants. Sturdy, dark brown. A tunic of some tough, tightly woven fabric. A short, sleeveless leather jerkin reinforced at shoulders and sides. All cut slimmer than Ashridge’s usual bulky style, but clearly meant for travel.
Her gaze flicked up. “You’re… dressing me as a warrior,” she said.
“I’m dressing you as someone who’s going to be scrambling over rocks and possibly running from things with teeth,” Mara said dryly. “Dresses catch on branches.”
Lira’s cheeks warmed. “I’ve run in a dress before,” she muttered.
“Then consider this an upgrade,” Mara said. “You wear Thornfell’s colors on your mantle. Today, you wear Ashridge’s on your back.”
Lira looked down again. The jerkin was dyed a deep, nearly-black blue, the stitching at the seams a subtle, familiar gray. Ashridge’s colors.
Her throat tightened. “Won’t some of your wolves… object?” she asked, fingers smoothing the leather.
“To you wearing our colors?” Mara snorted. “If they have time to fuss about fashion while we’re walking into wild magic, I’ll sedate them for stupidity.”
Despite herself, Lira smiled. “Yes, healer.”
Mara’s eyes softened, just a fraction. “Eat first,” she said. “Then gear up. Corin wants to leave when the mist’s still on the ground.”
“Romantic,” Lira said.
“Idiot,” Mara corrected. “Fog hides us from eyes we don’t know are watching.”
Right. Not romance. Strategy.
Still, as Lira swung her legs off the cot and her bare feet hit the cold floor, a flicker of something disturbingly close to excitement cut through her dread.
She was going out.
Not as a frightened girl stumbling from a blood moon’s ruin.
Not as a healer quietly cleaning up after disasters she hadn’t chosen.
As part of a pack. Not hers. But a pack.
*And with him,* a traitor thought whispered.
She shoved it down.
***
She ate standing at the infirmary’s small stove—thick porridge with dried fruit, a hunk of bread, strong tea that tasted faintly of mint and smoke. Idris staggered in halfway through, hair a mess, eyes at different levels of awake.
“You’re… really going,” he said around a yawn.
“So are you,” she said.
He shook his head. “Mara says I stay. Someone needs to hold down the fort. And she doesn’t trust anyone else not to rearrange her shelves while she’s gone.”
“Wise,” Lira said.
“You’ll… be careful?” he asked, gaze serious now.
“I’ll try,” she said. “No promises.”
He swallowed. “Good. Promises are… heavy.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bundle wrapped in cloth. “Here,” he said, thrusting it at her.
“What is it?” she asked, unwrapping it.
Inside lay three small vials stoppered with wax. One held a clear liquid, another a faintly blue one, the third a deep green.
“Fever-breaker,” Idris said, tapping the clear vial. “Shock-draught,” the blue. “And that one—” He hesitated. “Don’t drink the green unless Mara tells you to. Or you feel your skin starting to… slip.”
Lira’s stomach turned. “Slip.”
“It… helps anchor shifts that are going wrong,” he said. “Sometimes. Or at least… slows them. Gives us time to work.”
“Have you… used it?” she asked softly.
“Once,” he said. “On a boy from the south patrol. It… wasn’t enough then. But it might be… out there. Where you’re going.” His jaw clenched. “I don’t want to see you come back… twisted.”
“Idris,” she said.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I know you can… drain. But if something grabs you before you can pull it in…” He swallowed. “Just… take them.”
She did. The glass clicked softly as she slipped the vials into a small inner pocket of her jerkin. “Thank you,” she said. “For trusting me not to… waste them.”
He huffed. “You’re the least wasteful person I’ve met,” he said. “Emotionally, maybe. But not with tinctures.”
She rolled her eyes. “High compliment from an Ashridge healer.”
“The highest,” he said solemnly.
Mara’s voice cut across the room. “You two done cooing? We’re on a schedule.”
Idris grinned. “Go,” he said. “Bring back useful stories.”
“Or none at all,” she said.
“Preferably with you in them,” he said.
“Preferably,” she agreed.
***
The courtyard outside the main hall was shrouded in a low, clinging mist. It blurred edges—of stones, of wolves, of the world. Breath puffed in small clouds as the assembled group waited.
Corin stood near the gate, cloak thrown back, arms folded. Rane was already in wolf form—an impressive, silver-dusted creature despite her age, eyes bright and sharp. Garron paced in human shape, restless, boots scuffing the packed earth.
Bram was there too.
Of course he was.
He wore a dark shirt half-buttoned, sleeves rolled to his forearms, trousers tucked into scuffed boots. A thick band of fresh linen still wrapped his ribs beneath the fabric; she could see its faint outline when he shifted his weight. His scar was less angry now, though still stark against his skin.
His eyes, when they lifted and found her, lit.
“Gods, Mara,” he said, loud enough for the healer to hear as Lira approached. “You *do* have taste.”
It took Lira a second to realize he was looking at her.
She fought the urge to tug at the jerkin. The leather hugged her shoulders, the pants snug but flexible. She felt… exposed. Not because the clothes revealed more—they didn’t—but because they said *I’m going out there.* I’m *part* of this.
Mara snorted. “Don’t drool, boy. You’ll rust.”
Garron let out a low whistle. “Thornfell’s witch cleans up,” he said, half-approving, half-teasing.
“Stop calling her that,” Bram said, surprising everyone, including himself. His tone was a growl.
Garron’s brows rose. “Easy,” he said. “Habit.”
“Break it,” Bram said.
Lira swallowed, heat crawling up her neck. “It’s fine,” she muttered.
“It’s not,” Bram said. His eyes didn’t leave Garron. “You wouldn’t like it if they called you *raider* every time you walked into Thornfell.”
Garron’s jaw flexed. “Point taken,” he said. To Lira, more quietly: “Sorry. Lira.”
She nodded. “Apology accepted.”
Corin stepped forward. “Everyone ready?” he asked.
Rane chuffed, shaking out her fur.
Garron rolled his shoulders. “Ready as we’ll ever be.”
Bram’s gaze flicked over Lira again. “You got… everything you need?” he asked.
She touched the hidden vials through the jerkin. “Probably not,” she said. “But enough.”
He huffed. “That’s all we ever have.”
Corin lifted his hand. “We move fast,” he said. “We stay close. No one breaks formation unless I say or Lira screams.”
“That’s… comforting,” Lira muttered.
“Comfort’s for home,” Corin said. “This is work.”
Mara stepped close enough to grab Lira’s collar briefly, tugging her forward. “If you feel anything building,” she said, low and fierce, “you *say it.* Don’t spare our feelings. Don’t try to handle it alone.”
Lira nodded. “I won’t,” she said.
Mara’s gaze searched her face. Then, in a rare gesture, she leaned in and pressed her forehead lightly to Lira’s for a brief moment. “Come back,” she murmured.
Lira’s throat closed. “You too,” she whispered.
Mara snorted, stepping back. “I’m too mean to die.”
“True,” Bram said.
Mara swatted his arm. “Watch her,” she ordered.
“I am,” he said, and Lira felt, stupidly, like he meant more than the trip.
Corin shifted first.
The transition from man to wolf was always violent and graceful at once. Bone lengthening, muscles rippling, skin rippling into fur. In seconds, a massive, dark-furred alpha wolf stood where the man had, pale eyes sharp.
Rane padded to his right. Garron stripped without much ceremony, tossing his clothes aside before shifting—a broad, tawny wolf with a thick ruff. Bram hesitated only a heartbeat before doing the same.
Lira had seen him half-shift. Twisted. Broken.
This—
This was something else.
His wolf form was… beautiful.
Massive, yes. Broad shoulders, deep chest. Fur a dark, rich brown, almost black along his spine, lighter at his belly. The line of his scar cut through the fur along his muzzle and left eye—a pale, jagged streak that somehow made him look more dangerous, not less.
His eyes were the same molten amber, rimmed with gold.
He shook himself, fur rippling, then stepped forward, close enough that she could feel his heat.
He dipped his head. A question.
She swallowed.
“Do you… need a saddle?” Garron asked helpfully, already in wolf form. His voice came out as a series of huffs and ear-twitches, but in this half-space—so close to the shift—Lira’s human head could almost read it.
“Shut up,” Bram snapped, in wolf-thought. His ears flicked back, then forward, fixing on Lira again.
“I’ve never…” she began.
“Climb,” Mara said briskly. “You’ve ridden horses?”
“Once,” Lira lied.
“Same idea,” Mara said. “Just… more fur. And attitude.”
Bram snorted.
Corin chuffed, impatient, already at the gate.
Lira drew a breath.
“All right,” she said. “How—?”
Bram stepped closer, lowering his body slightly, one front leg bent to brace.
“Put your hands on his shoulders,” Mara instructed. “Foot there. Swing over. And *don’t* grab his neck like you’re trying to strangle him.”
Lira flashed her a look. Then set her hands where fur met muscle.
Heat. Coarse hair under her palms. Solid strength.
Bram held perfectly steady.
She jammed one boot against his bent foreleg, pushed up, swung her other leg over. For a second she tipped precariously.
His shoulders shifted under her, adjusting, spreading.
Then she was astride him.
She froze.
Every instinct screamed *wrong.* Wolves weren’t meant to be ridden. They ran beside you. They didn’t carry you.
But Bram’s wolf… accepted it. His back was broad enough that her knees barely brushed his ribs. She leaned forward slightly, hands sliding along his shoulders until her fingers curled in the ruff at his neck.
Not choking. Not gripping too hard.
Just… holding.
His scent—stronger now, fur and earth and that under-note she’d come to think of as uniquely Bram—filled her nose. His heartbeat thudded under her thighs. His wolf pressed, curious, against her emptiness.
She shivered.
He huffed, a sound that might have been reassurance.
“Comfortable?” Garron asked, amusement radiating off his wolf form.
“No,” Lira said through gritted teeth.
“Good,” Mara muttered. “Means you’ll stay alert.”
Corin barked once. The gate creaked open.
Ashridge’s alpha shot through first, a dark blur in the fog. Rane ghosted after him. Garron followed, paws barely whispering on the packed earth.
Bram sprang.
For a terrifying second, Lira thought she’d slide backward. Then her body found the rhythm.
Wolves ran differently than horses. Less up-and-down, more powerful surge. His entire body coiled and released, each stride eating ground. The world blurred at the edges.
Her hands tightened involuntarily in his fur.
His wolf’s presence flared, not offended—pleased.
*She holds,* it thought, brushing her mind, the sense more emotion than words.
Her emptiness answered. *I have to,* she thought. *You’re too fast.*
He huffed, something like a laugh.
“You two flirting back there?” Mara called, voice fading as she fell behind.
Lira flushed. “Shut up,” she muttered into Bram’s fur.
His shoulders shook. She suspected he was laughing.
The village fell away behind them. Trees closed in. The mist thickened, beading on wolf fur and her hair. Branches reached overhead, skeletal against the dim light.
The stones hummed.
She felt it before they even reached the first boundary marker.
A low vibration, not in her ears—in her bones. In her teeth. In that empty channel inside.
Bram’s wolf shifted, paws adjusting for the incline as they began to climb. They were angling north, skirting the main ridge.
*Stone,* his sense nudged her.
“I feel it,” she whispered.
Corin slowed as they approached the first boundary stone. It loomed from the fog, taller than a man, runes etched deep. The lines of magic running through it glowed faintly, like banked coals.
Today, the hum was… different.
Less frantic. More… watchful.
Rane brushed her flank against the stone as she passed. Her fur lifted slightly, static crackling.
Lira reached out, fingers grazing the rough surface as Bram slipped by.
The hum flared.
Old magic tasted her. Recognized the emptiness. Remembered.
It did not surge.
It… *adjusted.*
Tapped.
A question, older than packs, older than stone.
*You again?*
She swallowed. “We’re trying,” she murmured. “To fix what we… broke.”
The hum deepened. Skeptical. But not dismissive.
“It knows you,” Bram thought, the sense brushing her as his wolf passed under the looming marker.
“It knows… what hurt it,” she thought back.
He huffed.
They moved on.
The climb grew steeper as they approached Ash Ridge proper. The path narrowed, pushing them into single file. Rocks jutted, slick with moss. In wolf form, Corin, Rane, and Garron navigated with surety born of generations. Bram’s muscles bunched and flexed under Lira, steady even when the ground shifted.
She tried to ignore how acutely aware she was of every move he made. How each breath he took lifted her slightly. How his fur brushed the inside of her thighs through the leather.
It was… intimate.
Too intimate for a first anything.
She focused on the land instead.
The hum of magic grew louder as they ascended. Not just from the stones. From the earth itself. Like they were walking along the surface of some vast, sleeping creature’s spine.
Her emptiness vibrated in sympathy.
“You good?” Bram thought, the sense a nudge.
“Ask me when we go back down,” she thought, clinging as he hopped a fallen log in one clean bound.
He landed lightly. “Show-off,” she muttered.
He preened a little.
Corin slowed at the crest of the ridge. The trees thinned, giving way to scrub and rock. The fog parted enough to offer a view.
Lira sucked in a breath.
Ashridge spread below them in shades of gray and green. The village was a smudge of darker shapes; beyond it, the forest rolled like an ocean to the south and east. To the north, the land dipped into a shallow valley before rising again in a line of jagged hills.
Beyond that—the distant bruise of Thornfell’s mountains.
And there, like a wound, a thin scar of darkness cut through the hills to the north-northeast.
The ravine.
Even from here, she could feel it.
A wrongness. A silence where there should be hum.
Her skin crawled.
Corin gave a low whuff. *There.*
Rane’s lips lifted in a silent snarl, teeth flashing. Garron’s ears flattened.
Bram’s wolf bristled under Lira.
She swallowed. “That’s it,” she whispered. “The… quiet.”
The wind shifted, bringing scents to her—damp earth, rock, distant river.
And beneath—
Ash. Old blood. Rot.
Faint. But there.
Corin set off again, heading along the ridge, keeping to the tree line where possible. The path down would be steeper on this side. Trickier.
“Hold tight,” Bram thought.
“I am,” she thought back.
He didn’t say what else he was holding back.
They descended.
***
The ravine looked like a crack in the world.
Up close, it was deeper than Lira had thought. The ground simply… fell away, a jagged gash in the hillside lined with rock and sparse, scraggly trees clinging to the walls. At the bottom, a thin thread of water glimmered—more a trickle than a river, carving its patient path.
The hum of the land died at its edge.
Lira felt it cut off under Bram’s paws.
One second—static. Vibration. Old magic thrumming.
The next—
Nothing.
Her breath stalled.
Bram stopped dead at the lip, muscles bunching. His ears flattened, fur standing on end.
Corin paced a few steps along the edge, nose testing the air. His fur bristled too. Rane stayed back, hackles high. Garron’s wolf form emitted a low, uneasy whine.
Lira slid off Bram’s back without waiting for Mara’s instructions. Her boots slipped on the loose dirt. She steadied herself on his shoulder, then stepped forward until her toes were at the very edge.
Cold rose from the ravine.
Not air cold. Not the bite of morning. A deep, marrow-level chill.
Her emptiness screamed.
It recognized this. This flavor. This… hand.
Her vision swam for a second.
“Lira,” Bram’s wolf thought sharply. “Back.”
She shook her head. “I’m… fine,” she lied.
Mara’s hand landed hard on her shoulder, yanking her two steps away. “Don’t be stupid,” she snapped. “We just got you here. I’m not dragging your empty shell home.”
Lira dragged in a breath. The edge’s immediate pull loosened slightly. “Sorry,” she said automatically.
“Stop apologizing,” Mara growled.
Lira’s gaze dropped.
Halfway down, clinging to a ledge like a barnacle, stood the stone.
It was larger than she’d pictured. Roughly rectangular, as tall as two men and half as wide, wedged into the ravine wall at a precarious angle. Runes crawled over its surface—some old, some… fresher. Newer lines scorched into the rock, sloppy and arrogant.
Bloodstains smeared the lower half, dark and old.
The stone itself was… wrong.
Not cracked like Thornfell’s standing stone. Not exactly. Veins of red pulsed through it like old lava, frozen and yet somehow… alive. The air around it shimmered faintly, the way air did over a fire.
“Tansy’s alpha used *that*?” Garron muttered, human again, his voice rough.
“Yes,” Lira said hoarsely. “Or something like it. There were others. Smaller. Weaker. This… feels… deep.”
Corin shifted back to human with a shake, bare skin steaming in the chill. He didn’t seem to feel it. “We can’t reach it from here,” he said. “Too steep.”
“We go down,” Bram said, voice human again too now, low and certain.
“Not you,” Mara snapped. “Not yet.”
He glared. “I’m not staying up here like a coward while you—”
“Cowards live,” Mara said. “Idiots die.”
“Idiots also get things done,” he shot back.
“Enough,” Corin cut in. His gaze skimmed the ravine walls, calculating. “We’ll need ropes. Anchors. We’re not climbing blind. The stone’s embedded. If we start hacking at it, we don’t know what else we shake loose.”
Lira swallowed. “You can’t… just chisel it out,” she said. “It’s… part of the web now. Rip it, and the rest… tightens.”
“Then what?” Garron demanded. “We leave it? Let it sit there sucking wolves into its cracks?”
“No,” she said. “We… bleed it.”
They all looked at her.
She licked her lips. “Not… literally,” she clarified. “Not… what Tansy’s alpha did. I mean… drain. Slowly. Carefully. Node by node. Thread by thread. Here. And at any others we find.”
“You want to… feed it into yourself,” Garron said, sounding ill.
She flinched. “I want… fewer twisted wolves,” she said. “If that means I… burn… a little more each time…” She lifted one shoulder. “I’ve been burning anyway. Might as well aim the fire.”
Bram’s hand found hers before she finished the sentence.
His grip was firm. Warm.
“Not alone,” he said.
Her fingers curled around his without her permission. “I never asked—”
“You don’t have to,” he said.
Corin’s gaze went from their joined hands to the stone and back. “We’re not doing anything today,” he said. “Not without preparation. Not with no anchor for you if it… pulls too hard.”
“Stones can anchor,” Rane rasped, shifting enough to speak, her voice old and rough.
Lira looked at her. “Yes,” she said slowly. “They can. If we… re-tie them. The ones up on Ash Ridge. Thornfell’s. This one. Others. Re-weave the web. On *our* terms.”
Mara swore under her breath. “You’re talking about resetting half the land’s magic,” she said. “With what, a few wolves and a healer with no wolf and too much stubborn?”
Lira met her eyes. “Do you see anyone else?” she asked quietly.
Mara looked away first.
Corin exhaled, long and slow. His breath smoked in the cold. “We go back,” he said. “We plan. We gather what we need. Runes. Ropes. Wards. Maybe even Cael’s stubborn ass.”
Lira’s stomach clenched. “You’ll tell him.”
“We’ll have to,” Corin said. “This reaches too far to pretend it’s ours alone. And if we’re going to retie the world, we might as well invite all the fools who helped untie it.”
Rane huffed. “Old wounds,” she said. “New bandages.”
Garron’s gaze dropped to the ravine again. “I don’t like leaving it,” he muttered.
“We’re not leaving it,” Bram said. “We’re… circling. Like wolves. We’ll come back. With teeth.”
Lira squeezed his hand.
His thumb brushed the inside of her wrist, where her pulse hammered.
“Can you… walk?” she asked softly. “Back up the ridge.”
He gave her a flat look. “Yes.”
“You lie,” she said. “But… we’ll fix that later.”
He huffed.
They stepped back from the edge.
As they turned, something caught at the very corner of Lira’s vision.
A flicker.
She snapped her head back.
For a heartbeat, she saw a shape at the opposite lip of the ravine. Tall. Thin. Cloaked in shadows that weren’t mist.
Eyes glinting pale.
Watching.
Then—it was gone.
“Did you see that?” she whispered.
“See what?” Bram asked, instantly alert.
“Something,” she said, scanning the far side. “Someone. Watching.”
Corin’s hackles—metaphorical, even in human form—rose. “Where?”
“There,” she said, pointing.
Nothing. Just rock and scrub and fog.
But the wrongness lingered. Like the echo of a scent.
“It’s… aware,” she said softly. “Of us. Of… me.”
Bram’s hand tightened on hers.
“Good,” he said, voice hard. “Let it know we’re coming.”
Her emptiness shivered.
She wasn’t sure that was good at all.
But she didn’t say it.
Not yet.
They turned their backs on the ravine.
The hum of the land resumed as they left the silence behind. Louder now. Urgent.
The world was watching too.
And waiting.
---