Caitlyn’s POV
I don’t dream, not really. Just flickers of noise behind my eyes. But I wake with the blade already in my hand, gripped so tight my fingers sting. I don't remember reaching for it.
The fire’s gone out. The world is gray and quiet, except for Rael’s faint breathing and the sound of wind tugging through the rocks above. My shoulder still throbs, but it's dulled now, manageable. A back-alley ache rather than the full-body scream it had been.
I haven't felt close to shifting since Hollow Ridge. Since the blood and the burn and the night I stopped trusting my own bones. But something’s different now. My limbs feel lighter, my balance strange but not wrong. Like my body’s ticking over into something it remembers being once, before the breaking started.
It’s not healing. Not yet
