The night stretched over the Northern Veil like a thick, suffocating blanket, but this time it carried a different weight. The usual smell of smoke, iron, and scorched earth had been replaced by a quiet tension, almost too subtle to notice, yet impossible to ignore. Selara crouched atop the ridge overlooking the valley, silver veins pulsing faintly beneath her skin, reflecting the moonlight in rhythmic surges that matched her heartbeat. Each flicker of light was a whisper of power, a warning that something far more dangerous than shadows or corrupted wolves stirred below.
