Chapter 79. The Ones Who Watched

The cold had grown quieter in her absence.

Not softer, not warmer—just quieter, like a breath being held. Aria crossed the northern ridgeline with frost clinging to her boots and an ache behind her eyes that no sleep could ease. She had been gone nine days. Maybe ten. She hadn’t kept track. Time moved differently in the forest, where the trees whispered too loudly and the sky never blinked.

She hadn’t meant to return.

Not like this.

But something had changed in the air. A shift so sharp she felt it crack across her ribs. She had woken with her heart racing, palms slick, her pulse synchronized with something distant and wrong.

So she ran.

The compound’s perimeter looked the same, but smelled of panic. Smoke and sweat and old fear. The guard tower had fresh gouges in its stone—claw marks too wide to belong to wolves. The warding stones were fractured at the base, the runes leaking magic like open wounds.

No one stood watch.

That was the