The forest received her without question.

  Rain drifted through the high canopy and settled along her fur as she ran, each stride unfolding with the quiet certainty of something remembered rather than learned. The ground shifted beneath her paws in steady accord, damp soil firm enough to trust, roots curving through the earth like hidden arteries. Moonlight filtered between the branches in pale veils, touching bark and leaf and the sleek line of her shoulders before dissolving into shadow again.

  She did not carry herself carefully here.

  Her body answered only to instinct, muscle gathering and releasing in seamless rhythm, breath entering deep and leaving clean. The tightness she wore through waking hours eased with every stretch of limb, every unmeasured stride. In the dream forest there were no corridors of stone narrowing around her, no listening for the weight of a footstep beyond a door, no rehearsing silence before it was demanded. The trees neither watched nor judged. They stood, ancient and self-contained, and she moved among them as though she had always belonged.

  The river’s voice reached her from somewhere ahead, low and constant, threading through rain and leaf. She adjusted toward it without conscious thought. Water had always been a promise in this place—cool, open, endless.

  Warmth gathered at her flank.

  She felt him before she saw him, the presence of him folding into her stride as naturally as breath. When she turned her head, his outline remained softened at the edge of her vision, a suggestion of shape the dream refused to clarify. She had once tried to force it, straining for detail, but the forest had blurred him in answer. Since then she had let him remain as he wished—known without being named.

  He ran beside her, close enough that their shoulders brushed when the path narrowed. The contact steadied her in a way she did not examine too closely. Heat traveled through rain-damp fur and settled low in her chest, loosening something that rarely relaxed when she was awake. She angled nearer without thinking. He matched her easily, their movement weaving into a shared cadence that felt less like coincidence and more like inevitability.

  Lightning flickered along the horizon where the storm gathered beyond the treeline, a pale fracture against distant clouds. The air remained cool. The river continued its steady murmur. Beside her, he ran as though the world held nothing that could close in around them.

  She smiled into the rain.

  This was the only place she allowed herself to.

  Here she did not measure the strength in her limbs or temper the sharpness of her thoughts. Here she did not fold her shoulders inward or quiet her breath. The forest accepted her speed, her hunger for motion, the fierce joy that rose unbidden when she pushed harder and felt the ground answer.

  She leaned into him again, testing the boundary of his warmth. He answered without hesitation, and for a suspended moment she felt whole in a way that frightened her even as it comforted her.

  The river went silent.

  Her next step faltered.

  She slowed, lifting her head, ears angling toward where the water should have been. Rain continued to fall, yet something beneath it had shifted. The air tasted faintly altered against her tongue. The forest seemed to draw inward, the spaces between trunks tightening.

  The warmth at her side thinned.

  She turned into emptiness.

  For a breath she expected him to reappear—slightly ahead, perhaps, or circling back—but the space remained vacant. Rain struck her alone. The rhythm they had shared dissolved into the solitary sound of her own movement.

  A tremor traveled up through the ground, subtle at first, then deeper, settling into her bones. She stepped back, intending to run, but the earth felt heavier beneath her paws, resistant where it had once yielded.

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  Shadows gathered between the trees, settling with patient weight until the silver wash of moonlight dulled against bark and leaf alike.

  Where are you?

  The thought surfaced before she could stop it.

  The answer came as a whisper, cold and deliberate.

  Run.

  She lunged forward.

  The ground vanished.

  Light fractured overhead in a blinding flare as the sky seemed to tear apart. The trees folded inward without sound. Rain, river, warmth—all of it ripped away in a single breath, leaving only the sensation of falling and the hollow space where he had been.

  Elora dropped into darkness.

  Air tore into her lungs before awareness fully returned.

  She came upright in her narrow bed, fingers curling into the blanket as though she could anchor herself against the sensation of falling that still clung to her body. For a lingering moment the memory of open sky collapsing inward pressed against her ribs, the hollow absence where warmth had been settling just beneath her skin. Gradually the shape of her room replaced it—the slanted stone ceiling, the pale thread of morning light slipping through clear glass, the quiet weight of wool and wood and unmoving air. Everything held its place. Nothing vanished.

  She forced her breathing steady and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, letting her feet meet the polished boards below. Solid. Predictable. The kind of ground that did not disappear without warning.

  “The dream again,” she murmured, though this time the words felt insufficient.

  It had followed her since her first shift at sixteen, returning with quiet insistence: the same forest, the same running, the same presence beside her that felt more real than most daylight hours. For two years it had always ended at the river—moonlight stretching over dark water, the hush of current over stone, the quiet ache of waking before she could choose to remain.

  Last night had been different.

  She did not let herself linger on how.

  Her wolf shifted restlessly beneath her skin, unsettled by the abrupt return but contained. Elora pressed her palm briefly to her sternum until her heartbeat slowed into something measured.

  Her room reflected discipline more than comfort. The bed aligned flush to the wall. The dresser stood square beneath the cracked mirror. Her blades and practice spear rested within easy reach of the door, balanced and maintained. Nothing lay where it could catch her in the dark. She dressed without hesitation—black tunic drawn smooth across her shoulders, slate-grey trousers secured, boots laced tight enough for sudden movement. When she fastened the clasp of her bronze cloak, her wrist twinged faintly where the pale scar circled it. She acknowledged the sensation and let her hand fall.

  The mirror caught her reflection as she straightened. Golden eyes regarded her steadily, alert even before the day demanded it.

  “Guide the hunt,” she whispered, fingers brushing lightly over her chest. “Guard the heart.”

  The words steadied her.

  The scent of woodsmoke drifted down the hallway as she stepped into it, mingling with bread warming on the stove. The kitchen lay at the center of the house, proportioned for a family of four, its stonework clean and well-kept, copper fittings polished from years of use.

  Micah sat at the table, long limbs folded into a space that hadn’t yet quite grown to fit him. His dark hair refused discipline, sticking up in uneven angles, and when he looked up at the sound of her boots, his amber-brown eyes carried more thoughtfulness than most boys his age.

  “You’re up before the bells,” he observed. “That’s suspicious.”

  She crossed the room and nudged his knee lightly before sitting beside him. “You’re suspicious.”

  “I’m observant,” he corrected.

  Their mother moved between stove and basin with quiet precision. Elora noticed the bruise along her mother’s cheekbone without allowing her gaze to linger.

  “You couldn’t sleep?” she asked him.

  “Dreams again,” he said. “It’s fine. I just need to get through Middle Ring.”

  “Middle Ring’s meant to feel that way.”

  He hesitated. “Do you think my spirit will be a panther like Mama’s?”

  “You already move like her. You watch first.”

  “That’s not the same as claws.”

  “Claws are loud. You don’t need loud.”

  He stared at his plate.

  “You don’t think I’ll be like—” He stopped himself, gaze flicking briefly toward the hallway before returning to his fork.

  Elora nudged his shoulder gently with hers. “You won’t.”

  Outside, the district stood in orderly symmetry.

  Kailee pushed off the side of the carriage the moment she saw her. “You look like you lost an argument with sleep. Want to punch something?”

  Elora gave her a flat look.

  “I volunteer as tribute.”

  A faint smile curved at Elora’s mouth before she could stop it. “You’d enjoy that too much.”

  “There she is,” Kailee murmured, satisfied, as she stepped forward and slung an arm over Elora’s shoulders, guiding her toward the carriage doors with easy familiarity.

  The carriage rolled toward the Upper Ring.

  Stone did not bend here. Lines did not blur.

  Unlike the forest.

  Rain against fur. The hush of the river. The warmth that had run beside her for two years without fail.

  Then the absence.

  Her fingers tightened slightly against the carriage frame before she forced them to loosen.

  The dream lingered at the edge of her thoughts like a bruise she refused to press.