The fire still clung to my skin, hot and biting, even as the clearing sank into uneasy quiet. Ash and iron filled my lungs with every ragged breath. Silas was steady beside me, a rock in the chaos, though I could feel him tense—muscles coiled, eyes scanning, always calculating. The larger shadow had disappeared, but I knew better than to think it gone. It had only stepped back, patient as death itself, waiting.

I dropped to my knees, letting the heat drain from my veins. My fingers twitched. ...