Chapter 46. In the Bone Forest

The battered wolves moved before dawn, slipping into the deep woods beneath a veil of clinging mist.

Selene led them with measured steps, each one deliberate, each breath shallow against the slow burn of poison threading through her veins. Alaric flanked her closely, near enough that their shoulders brushed as they walked. Neither spoke. Words would have cost strength they could not spare.

Ahead, the Bone Forest loomed—an ancient, cursed expanse where even the Council’s bravest warriors hesitated to tread. The trees here grew thin and pale, their bark bleached to bone-white by centuries of warped magic. Skeletons of beasts hung from branches like grim ornaments, some monstrous, others painfully familiar, strung up by wind or left behind as offerings by hands long since turned to dust.

At the forest’s edge, the wolves s