The shadow came towards us fast, too fast for my eyes to follow. At first, I thought Limene was right that it was something strange, something beyond the world of wolves. But when the figure finally stepped into the light that fell across the lake, I saw it clearly.

It was a wolf.

A rogue wolf.

His fur was dark, darker than any I had ever seen. It wasn’t the kind of black that came from nature; it looked like something that had been burned by evil, a color that swallowed the light instead of ...