Chapter 7: The Whisper of the Wild

The cold night air was a physical slap, shocking my fever-ridden system into a semblance of alertness. Behind me, the warm, dim light of my cottage—the only home I’d ever known—felt like a distant memory. Before me stretched the impenetrable darkness of the Whispering Woods, a place of legend and danger, a boundary few half-bloods dared to cross. Every instinct screamed at me to turn back, to seek shelter, to succumb to the weakness dragging at my limbs. But the memory of Kaelus’s frustrated,...