There was nothing.
No birds.
No insects.
No animals.
No wind.
Only the sound of our boots crushing fallen leaves.
Each step too loud.
Each breath too loud.
My heartbeat too loud.
Liam walked beside me, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine every few minutes. I hated that it helped.
I hated that every time his scent reached me — cedar, leather, pack, Liam — some tiny part of me stopped screaming for half a second.
Perse would have teased me about that.
My chest hurt.
A tree to our left had something carved into its bark.
I stopped.
The symbol was small. Almost hidden beneath moss. Three sharp lines intersecting inside a circle, carved deep enough that the wound in the trunk had gone black around the edges.
Runes.
I didn’t know much about runes.
Perse did.
Of f*****
