Nathan's POV

The night tasted like metal. I stood at the border with Cade and the warriors behind me, the moon caught at the highest point of the sky like a blade waiting to fall. The forest was too still. No wind. No insects. No night birds. Just silence, unnatural, heavy, stretched so tightly that every breath scraped my lungs.

“She’s close,” Cade murmured.

I nodded. “I know.”

The witch’s scent, metal, ash, and rotting flowers was creeping through the trees long before her ...