☆LYRA

The forest changed the closer we got to Blackwater Ridge.

The air grew heavier first.

Then quieter.

Not natural quiet—the kind that came when predators moved through an area so often even the insects learned to stay silent.

Every instinct I had screamed that we were walking into something wrong.

And the bond?

It agreed.

It pulsed steadily beneath my skin with every step, alert and tense, like it already recognized this place.

We moved fast through the trees, shadows slipping ...