The silence in the room is absolute.
I close my eyes, trying to reach out. I try to feel the bedrock beneath the Academy. I try to feel the pulse of the Genesis Seed in the Mariana Trench. I try to feel the steady, rhythmic breathing of the three hundred wolves in the integration school.
Nothing.
Just the cold, empty dark.
A sob tears its way out of my throat, raw and ugly. I curl inward, wrapping my arms around my knees, burying my face in my chest. The grief is a physical weight, crushing my lungs, suffocating my heart. I am not just a wolf who lost her magic. I am the Anchor who lost the earth. I am the foundation that has crumbled to dust.
The bed shifts. Kade is there.
He doesn't use his dead left arm. He uses his right, massive and strong, to wrap around my shaking shoulders. H
