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“I’m not giving up,” she whispered fiercely, almost to herself.

The candlelight flickered across the room, and somewhere beyond the walls, the forest stirred.

It had heard her.

She spent the next hours gathering, brewing, whispering. She lit spirit candles. Burned offerings of cedar and elderflower. She traced a spiral rune over Wren’s pulse point and poured her magic into it—her blood, her breath, her grief.

She didn’t think about Rollo.

Except she did.

Every time she poured her heart into the chant, she remembered his arms. The way he looked at her like she was the moon itself. The way hedidn’ttell her.

She felt her magic slip—just a little.

“Focus,” she whispered to herself. “For Wren.”

The ritual deepened, pulled at the thread between Delilah’s spirit and the forest’s. She swayed as power moved through her, sweat beading along her brow. The runes glowed faint green. For a moment, Wren’s breath came easier.

It flickered.

Delilah’s knees hit the floor.

“Please,” she gasped. “Just a little more.”

The magic around her crackled, thick with resistance. But still, she gave it everything.

When she finally collapsed at Wren’s bedside, her energy spent, she barely registered that the wind outside had gone still. The flowers in Wren’s hair hadn’t bloomed again. But they hadn’t faded further either.

Delilah leaned over, pressing her forehead to her grandmother’s chest, whispering, “Hold on. Just a little longer.”

She didn’t cry. Not because she wasn’t broken.

But because she was stillwholeenough to fight.

24

ROLLO

The wind was sharp up near the old clan site—too sharp for spring.

Rollo stalked through the trees, fists clenched, each step loud with purpose. The air stank of burnt cedar and iron—magic twisted in a way that soured the back of his throat. Shadows clung tighter here, stretching long beneath the skeletal trees that had once stood proud as the bear shifter heart of Celestial Pines.

Now the old camp was nothing but broken rings of stone, moss-covered timber, and memories that tasted like ash.

He hadn’t been back in years. Not since the exile. Not since Garrick spat his last words and vanished into the whispering woods like a curse.

But today? Today he wasn’t waiting.

Garrick had left his mark—literally. The sigils weren’t warnings anymore. They were challenges. Taunts. Lines drawn in blood and soil justoutsidethe sanctuary's reach. And Rollo was done letting him scratch at the edges.

The wind shifted. And Rollo knew, before he heard a sound, before the temperature dropped—that he wasn’t alone.

A figure stepped out from behind one of the old totems, tall and lean as ever, eyes like hollowed-out coals.

“Didn't think you'd come crawling,” Garrick drawled.

Rollo’s bear surged beneath his skin, rising like a storm. “Wasn’t crawling. I came to end this.”