Cassian's POV

The border between our lands and the Darklands wasn't a line drawn on a map, it was a wound in the earth itself.

I stood at the edge, staring into the twisted forest ahead, and felt my wolf recoil. The air here tasted wrong, thick with decay and something older that I didn't even have a name for. Even the moonlight seemed reluctant to touch this place, as though the goddess herself had turned her face away.

"Ready?" Caleb's voice broke through my thoughts.

I glanced at him. My ...