~LYRA'S POV~
The moon had been rising for an hour when the scent arrived.
I'd been on the balcony since the light changed, the same balcony I'd been standing at on every blood moon night since the battle, which was its own kind of ritual that I hadn't consciously decided to start. I just kept ending up here. The territory spread below. The treeline at the far edge. Solene warm and attentive in my chest.
I wasn't expecting anything. That was the strange part, afterward. I'd been standing there for an hour in the comfortable quiet of someone who had made peace with not knowing what to expect, and then the wind shifted from the east, and the scent hit me like a door opening.
Pine. Smoke. The specific darker thing underneath.
My entire body went still before I made any conscious decision.
