The wooden wolf felt like a coal in my hand, burning with the weight of a past I had never truly understood. I stood in the deep shadows of the pine forest, the messenger's departure leaving a void so heavy it seemed to pull the very air from my lungs. I looked down at the carving—the jagged, familiar strokes of the knife, the way the wolf's head was tilted as if listening for a distant howl. It was the mark of the man who had been the only father figure I'd ever known before he vanished into the mists of the Great Purge.
Elder was alive. And Silas had a son.
The world felt like a house of mirrors that had just been shattered, and every shard was cutting into my skin. I had spent my life as the "unwanted" daughter, the "wolfless" mistake, while Silas apparently played a game of gods and monsters behind the scenes.
"Elara? Who were you talking to?"
