Chapter 293. I Wish You Trusted Me

Aerys’s POV

The fight was finally over.

The forest, moments ago alive with snarls, screams, and the thunder of clashing bodies, fell into an uneasy quiet. Smoke hung low in the air, mingling with the metallic scent of blood and ozone from the residual magic still crackling faintly across the ground. Broken branches littered the earth like scattered bones, and churned mud bore the marks of claws, boots, and dragged bodies. The enemy had retreated—those who could still run, anyway—but the cost of driving them back was written all around us.

Too many of my people were down.

I stood there for a moment longer in my lycan form, chest heaving as I drew in deep, steadying breaths. Aire growled low in my mind, restless and unsatisfied. He hated unfinished business, hated that some of them had escaped. But even he under