Chapter 47. Ashfall

Jaryn was a wolf who measured his life by routine: the weight of the morning dew on the pines, the sharp tang of frost on the high peaks, the predictable rhythm of the Court’s patrols. He was not a warrior; he was a patroller, a border-runner—a mundane cog in the vast, ancient machinery of the Crest.

But the dawn following the cataclysm was anything but routine.

The air itself felt heavy, electrically charged, carrying a raw scent of ozone mixed with a metallic, coppery bitterness that burned the back of his throat. He stood at the edge of the Crescent Ridge forest, not far from the hidden access route Kade had used for years. Ahead, the sacred mountain peak that housed the Blood Court was shrouded in a plume of smoke, not the fine grey haze of a small fire, but a thick, oily, black-and-silver coil that rose straight into the cold sky, defying the wind.

The villagers below had been the first to report it. Not the smoke, but the ash.

Jaryn looked down at his g