KAEL'S POV
The mountain didn't groan so much as it exhaled. Long, deep and final.
I stood at the cliff's edge with the storm biting at my cloak, salt and snow tangling in the seams of my armor. Below, the valley churned. Camps burned like fireflies pinned to black velvet. Shouts carried up from the chaos below. Wolves. Steel. And the shriek of something more ancient. The kind of sound that peeled your instincts open and reminded you how small you really were.
Ayla was somewhere down there and I couldn't see her.
My hand tightened on the hilt of my sword, nails pressing into the worn leather grip. The air around the ridge carried the echo of earlier chaos—ashes, blood, ragged stone. But beneath it all, something else quivered: Ayla's scent. It had changed since the war, since her awakening. It was layered now—moonflower and storm, fierce and tempered with ash.
