The dead did not belong to any pack.
That was the problem.
Aria stood at the edge of the scorched boundary as the first light of morning bled across the valley. Dawn should have softened the world. It should have made the horror of the night feel distant, like a nightmare fading with sleep.
Instead, it only revealed more clearly what had been done.
The land was quiet now, too quiet, as if it were listening for echoes that refused to fade. No birds called. No wind stirred through the trees. Even the grass seemed to hold its breath.
Bodies had been removed. Blood had been burned away. The guards had worked quickly, efficiently, as if speed could erase the stain of violence.
But the damage lingered.
Aria could feel it in the soil beneath her bare feet, the faint ache of disturbance where death had torn through balance. The land remembered.
It always did.
