Chapter 2

Citlali's POV

At the front, heavy cavalry in full plate. Behind them, rows of archers with arrows already nocked, the metal tips catching the light in a way that made my stomach drop even though I didn't understand why.

The woman's voice rang out from the white wolf's throat, sharp with command and edged with something that might have been fear. "Fall back! Fall back!"

But there was nowhere to fall back to. More men emerged from the forest behind us—wolf hunters, every single one of them wearing silver chainmail or plate armor.

They didn't have matching uniforms, but every man was armored. They moved with the confidence of hunters who'd cornered their prey, and the circle closed around us like a noose. The trap was complete.

What followed was chaos. The woman's voice cut through the screaming and snarling, ordering everyone to scatter, to break through wherever they could.

The column fragmented, wolves peeling off in every direction, some making it through the lines, others falling to silver arrows or silver-edged swords that bit deep and left wounds that wouldn't close.

I clung to the white wolf's back in the dream as she dodged and weaved, carving a path through the enemy with teeth and claws that left red ruin in their wake.

Our group got smaller. One by one, the wolves running with us fell or split off, until it was just dream-me and the white wolf—the woman.

She was bleeding now, I could see it even through the blur of motion—dark patches spreading across her white fur, too many to count. But she kept fighting, kept moving, kept putting herself between dream-me and anything that got too close.

I watched her tear out a man's throat in the dream. Watched her shoulder-check a horse hard enough to send both animal and rider tumbling.

Watched her take a sword slash across her ribs that should have killed her but only made her snarl louder. It was vivid in the way dreams sometimes are, every detail sharp and clear and impossible.

The woman fought as she retreated, killing hunters who came too close. The companions running with us grew fewer and fewer, until finally it was just the child and the woman.

Then there was nowhere left to run.

The cliff edge appeared suddenly, a sheer drop that made my child's heart seize in my chest even though I was just dreaming. The white wolf skidded to a halt, her sides heaving, blood dripping from a dozen wounds.

The hunters closed in, a semicircle of silver and steel and grim satisfaction.

One of them stepped forward, older than the others, with a face like weathered leather and eyes that held no mercy. "Surrender, beast. You've lost."

The white wolf shifted then, her form flowing back into the woman's shape in a way that should have been impossible but felt natural in the dream's logic.

She stood at the cliff's edge and even wounded and cornered like that, she was terrifying. She threw her head back and laughed, the sound sharp and bitter and utterly without fear.

"You think I don't know what you do to the ones you capture?" Her voice carried across the sudden silence, and I saw some of the hunters shift uncomfortably.

She turned, and her eyes met the child's for just a moment. They were silver, I realized, the same shade as the moon, and they held an apology and a promise and a love so fierce it hurt to look at even in a dream.

Then she shifted again, her human form dissolving back into the massive white wolf, and she scooped the child up in her jaws, gentle despite the teeth that could have crushed a skull. She held the child tight against her chest, cradled in the protective curve of her body.

She jumped.

The fall seemed to last forever and no time at all. I felt the woman's body curl around the child in the dream, felt her take the impact with her own flesh and bone while the small form remained cocooned in the protective cage of her embrace.

They hit the slope—not the bottom, but a steep incline that sent them tumbling and sliding in a chaos of fur and earth and pain. They must have fallen a hundred meters before crashing onto the slope.

When they finally stopped, the child was on top, the woman's body having absorbed the worst of it. The woman lost consciousness, and the child was hurt too, but still able to move.

I couldn't process what had just happened. Then I heard her breathing—harsh, wet, labored—and the child started crying, holding onto the woman.

The woman's wolf form was broken, I could see that even through the tears. Her massive body had protected the child, but she was covered in blood, not a single patch of skin left unharmed.

The child cried for a long time. Eventually, the woman's eyes opened slightly.

"Run, baby," she whispered, her voice barely audible, more felt than heard. "They'll come down looking for us. You have to run."

Her breathing slowly stopped. The child cried harder, the sound raw and desperate.

After what felt like an eternity, the child slowly pulled away, stumbling forward. She didn't know how far she walked, only that eventually her legs gave out and she collapsed, falling into unconsciousness.

That's where the dream always ended—with the sensation of falling, of the ground rushing up to meet me, of everything going black.

Just a dream. A weird, vivid, emotionally devastating dream that my eight-year-old brain had cooked up for reasons I couldn't begin to understand. Nothing more than that.

Except this time, I didn't wake up naturally from the dream. This time, something jolted me awake—a sharp kick against the side of my small bed that sent me tumbling half out of the thin blanket.

I forced my eyes open, my mind still tangled in the dream's aftermath, still seeing silver eyes and white fur and blood, and saw him standing over me.

My father.

The man whose face I'd learned to read like a weather forecast, searching for signs of the storm that was always brewing just beneath the surface.

"Are you Princess Laita, the King's daughter?" His voice was rough, slurred slightly—he'd been drinking again, I could smell it on him even from here.

My first thought, still fuzzy with sleep and the dream's lingering grip, was: Who the hell is that?

But I'd learned better than to voice that kind of confusion. I'd learned a lot of things from my father: never give him an excuse.

He was a harsh man. Just last night he'd made me feed the pigs and clean out the pens until well past midnight.

"No," I said, my voice small and careful.

"Then why haven't you gotten your lazy ass out of bed? Now get to work!" His hand was already rising, and I saw the blow coming with the clarity of long practice. "Did you even finish your chores last night, you worthless—"

I was out of the bed before he could finish, shooting out from under the blanket.