Chapter 104

The forest did not feel the same after the hunters retreated.

The air still carried fear, like a smell that refused to leave. Wolves stayed close as we moved, their presence silent but steady. No one spoke much. It wasn’t silence born of awkwardness—it was the kind that comes when everyone knows something has changed.

I felt it too.

Something inside me had shifted during that confrontation. Not exploded. Not awakened suddenly.

It settled.

Like a crown resting on a head that ...