Chapter 7 THE HEART OF THE WILD

The world became a lulling rhythm of Kael's steady strides and the creak of ancient branches.

Pain was a distant country I drifted in and out of, held separate from me by the strange, shimmering warmth that emanated from his hands where they supported my back and knees.

I couldn't think.

I could only exist a bundle of broken sensations carried through the night.

Time lost meaning.

The forest changed around us.

The familiar pines and oaks of pack territory gave way to trees I didn't recognize-their bark darker, twisted into shapes that spoke of centuries, not decades.

The air grew thicker, richer with the scent of loam, moss, and a mineral tang like cold stone.

No pack had ever walked here.

This land felt... awake.

And watching.

Just as the grey pre-dawn light began to bleed into the sky, we stopped. Before us was not a cave or a hut, but the immense, gnarled base of a tree so vast it could have been a tower.

Its roots formed great, arched doorways into the earth. Kael turned sideways and carried me through one of them without hesitation

The inside defied all expectation.

It wasn't a dank hole. The space was wide, the air dry and surprisingly warm, carrying a clean scent of cedar and dried herbs. Faint, soft light emanated from clusters of luminescent fungi growing in careful patterns along the walls, like living sconces.

There were simple shelves carved into the earth, holding clay pots and woven baskets. A low bed of furs and moss was nestled against one curved wall.

It was a den.

A home.

With a care that felt incongruous coming from someone of his immense strength, Kael knelt and laid me on the bed of furs. The softness against my ravaged skin was almost a new kind of pain-a reminder of what gentle things felt like. "The stasis will not hold much longer," he stated, his voice filling the quiet space.

He moved to a shelf, selecting items with an efficiency that spoke of grim practice. "The wound must be closed.

The healing... that will be your journey. And a longer one." He returned with a stone bowl of clear water, strips of clean, soft cloth, and a paste in a wooden jar that smelled sharply of herbs and something pungent, like crushed evergreen.

"This will hurt," he said, meeting my eyes.

No false comfort.

Just truth.

I gave a tiny, desperate nod. Anything, I thought, anything to stop the slow leaking of my life onto the ground.

He began.

The initial touch of the wet cloth was a shock, but then he started to clean the Moonblade's gash. Agony, raw and brilliant, roared back to life, shredding the fragile peace he'd created. A scream tore from my throat, thin and ragged.

My body arched off the furs, a futile attempt to escape. His other hand came to rest firmly on my forehead, not restraining, but anchoring. "Breathe," he commanded, his voice a steady rock in the storm of pain.

"The pain is a river. Do not drown in it. Let it flow past you." I tried. I focused on the pressure of his hand, on the sound of his voice, on the faint, earthy smell of the den.

I choked on sobs, my fingers clawing into the furs, but I didn't fight him. The cleaning was meticulous, ruthless in its thoroughness.

When he applied the paste, a fresh, burning sensation joined the deep ache, but it was a clean burn, one that seemed to push back against the infection of the blade's cursed silver.

As he worked, binding the wound with the cloth strips, his silence was heavy. Finally, he spoke, his words measured.

"They used a Moonblade.

A tool for execution, for punishment. Not for a... hollowing." He said the word as if it were poison on his tongue.

"To sever the bond so violently... it is an act of profound cowardice. A wolf is not a limb to be severed. It is a soul-share." Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, tracking into my hair. He was giving words to the indescribable loss, and in doing so, he made it more real, more horrifying.

"Why?" I croaked. "Why would she...?

" "The 'why' of cruel minds is often a shallow thing," Kael said, finishing the bandage and sitting back on his heels. His silver gaze was distant, seeing things I couldn't. "Power. Fear. Jealousy.

MT need to break something beautiful simply because one cannot possess it." His eyes refocused on me.

"The 'why' does not matter now. Only the 'what is.' You are here. You are hollowed. And you are alive." "Am I?" The question was a whisper of despair.

"Without my wolf... what am I? I'm not a werewolf. I'm not human. I'm nothing." The confession, voiced aloud in this sacred, silent space, felt like the final truth. Kael's expression didn't soften, but it deepened.

"You are a field after a fire," he said, his voice low. "Barren. Silent. But the soil remains. And soil can be unforgiving.

It can remember the burn for a long time. But it can also grow new things. Different things. Things the old forest never dreamed of." He stood, his head nearly brushing the root-ribbed ceiling.

"Rest.

The den is warded. Nothing that means you harm can find this place. Sleep is the first medicine." Exhaustion, a tidal wave born of blood loss, pain, and emotional ruin, crashed over me.

My eyelids were slabs of stone. But as I sank into the dark, a new fear whispered. Not of Vivian, or of death. It was the fear of waking up. Of waking up to the yawning, permanent silence inside.

Of having to face the "what is." The last thing I saw was Kael, a silhouette of pure, untamed strength, standing at the entrance of the den, looking out at the waking forest-a sentinel once more.

Guarding not just my body, but the fragile, smoking field of my soul. And in that, there was a terrible, fragile sliver of something that was not yet hope, but was at least not utter despair.

It was the possibility of morning.