The forest had gone still. Not quiet—still. The kind of silence that made Taryn's every breath feel like an offense, her every step like a warning. She stopped walking, holding up a hand to signal Lucien to stop too. The air felt wrong. Too heavy, too cold.
Her fingers curled tighter around the dagger at her side, and she angled her head, listening. No wind. No birds. The kind of silence that pressed against her eardrums like a scream just out of reach.
"Do you feel that?" she whispered.
Taryn held her breath, the silence pressing against her chest like a weight. It wasn't just the absence of sound—it was the feeling of being unwelcome, as though the forest itself had turned against them. The shadows between the trees stretched unnaturally, dark and sharp-edged.
Something was wrong. She shifted her grip on her dagger, the leather of the hilt warm and familiar against her palm.
