Chapter 24. Scent of Blood

Dawn broke cold and colorless.

Aria’s eyes opened slowly, every muscle in her body protesting the simple act of breathing. She lay on her side, half-buried in leaves and soot, the taste of iron still thick on her tongue.

Pain hummed in her ribs. A sharp, wet kind of ache.

She sat up, gasping.

The forest around her was still.

The Trial was over.

Somewhere in the distance, a bell chimed—one, two, three times. Morning.

Aria looked down at herself.

Blood stained her clothes—dark streaks, dried and cracking across her sleeves, her stomach, the tear along her side where the rogue’s claw had landed. The wound still bled, but sluggishly.

More striking was the ash.

It coated her fingers, her hair, even her lashes. Pale gray dust—like something had burned away from the inside out.

She glanced behind her.

No tracks. No sign of the rogue. Just a blackened circle scorched into the clearing floor where she had first shifted.<