Leo's eyes flew open to the sharp tang of wet moss. The world pressed in damp and gray, the hollow forest still wrapped in the silence that followed storms. Droplets clung to every leaf above, falling at irregular intervals, their pattering a slow and relentless rhythm, as though the canopy itself counted down the moments left to them.
His chest heaved. His heart thundered against his ribs, not from the chill that seeped through his cloak, but from the echo of a voice that had clawed its way into his dreams. It hadn't been a dream in truth, not fully. The words still rang through him with the weight of command.
They are coming.
The sound of them lingered, not only in his mind but beneath his skin, vibrating in his very bones.
