I didn't dream.

There was only heat.

Heat, and the weight of something ancient moving beneath my skin like it had always been there. Like it had just been waiting for permission.

When I opened my eyes, I was still in the woods. The fire was low. The stars were gone.

Lazric sat on a stone a few feet away, his back to me, sharpening a knife with slow, patient strokes. He hadn't lit a new fire. He hadn't moved me. He hadn't run.

Good.

Because I needed answers, and if he'd tried to disappear, I might've let whatever was crawling inside me take over to find him.

I sat up slowly. Everything ached. Muscles I didn't know I had felt stretched and raw, like I'd been pulled apart and sewn back together.

Lazric didn't look over. "You're awake."

"Nice of you to notice."

"You talk a lot for someone who just shed her skin."

"What the hell is happening to me?"

He paused. One stroke. Two. Then he set the blade down beside him and turned to face me.

"You're waking up."

"I'm not a werewolf."

He raised a brow. "No one said you were."

"You've been saying it without saying it since the second I met you."

"I've been saying you're not human."

"Same thing."

"Not even close."

I stood, wobbling on my feet. The ground felt wrong - or maybe I did. My balance was off, like gravity had shifted two inches to the left.

"I don't feel like myself," I muttered.

"You won't again."

"Great."

I took a step toward him. He didn't move, but I felt the shift in his focus. The way his eyes tracked me like I was a threat.

"Do you think I'm dangerous?" I asked.

"I think you're unstable."

"Charming."

"It's not an insult. You're in transition. Everything's in conflict - instinct, memory, blood. Your body doesn't know what to do with you."

"I don't know what to do with myself," I admitted.

Lazric finally stood. He towered over me, but I didn't feel small. I felt... equal. Like the forest itself had changed its posture around us, waiting to see what I'd become.

"You felt it, didn't you?" he asked. "The thing inside you."

"Yes."

"It scared you."

I hesitated. "It felt... like me. But not. Like a version of me that stopped asking for permission a long time ago."

He nodded, almost approving.

"That's your Echo."

"My what?"

"Your wolf. The reflection of your blood. It's not separate - it's you, stripped of every human rule."

"Sounds like a monster."

"Or a mirror."

I folded my arms. "So what, I'm supposed to let it take over?"

"No," he said firmly. "You don't let it control you. You learn to speak its language."

"And what language is that?"

"Instinct. Rage. Memory."

I stared at him. "That's not a language. That's a war."

His mouth twitched. Almost a smile. "Now you're getting it."

I hated how calm he was. How composed. Like none of this was new or terrifying. Like he'd seen it a hundred times and barely remembered what it felt like to be on fire inside your own skin.

"Why are you helping me?" I asked.

He looked away for a beat. "Because I failed the last person who tried to run."

"Calen."

"Yes."

I stepped closer. My heart was racing again, but not from fear this time.

"If you cared so much," I said quietly, "why didn't you stop them?"

His jaw tightened. "Because I was still afraid of what I'd become if I fought back."

"And now?"

"Now I'm not."

The fire behind us sputtered out.

Silence pressed in.

I studied him. The scar. The way he stood like he expected the earth to attack him. The quiet power in his voice, even when it shook.

"I should hate you," I said.

"I wouldn't blame you."

"But I don't."

He met my eyes again. "That'll change."

I didn't know what that meant. I didn't ask. Something in me didn't want to know yet.

My head was pounding again. Less from pain, more like a pulse building behind my eyes.

"What happens next?" I asked.

"You sleep."

"And after that?"

"We start making you strong enough to survive."

"I don't want revenge," I said before I could stop myself.

He didn't react.

"I just want the truth."

He nodded. "Then that's where we begin."

---

Later, after Lazric had settled a second fire and leaned against a tree with his arms crossed, I curled into the blanket he'd left for me. My body felt like it had run ten miles and fought a bear at the finish line.

But my mind wouldn't slow down.

I closed my eyes.

And saw fire.

But not mine.

Not Calen's.

A fire from another time. Another self.

A woman standing in the center of a burning forest, blood on her hands, wolves at her feet.

She turned.

She had my face.

And when she spoke, I heard my own voice echo back:

"You are the last of us. But not for long."

I woke up in a cold sweat.

And across from me, Lazric opened his eyes like he'd heard her too.