Elira
By dawn the next morning, Elira had packed her satchel, gathered two days' worth of travel bread and dried fruit, and kissed her sleeping mother on the forehead without waking her. She pulled her green cloak tight and slipped into the wildwood beyond Eldhollow.
If she had seven days to save her brother, she'd need three things: the truth, a trail, and a miracle.
She started with the site of the arrest. A small glen two miles east—quiet, moss-laden, and crackling with remnants of spell-energy only someone trained could sense.
Elric had been gathering wolfsbane, that much he'd said before they'd taken him. A storm wolf had appeared—rare, aggressive, territorial. The magic he'd used to defend himself had scorched the trees.
But when Elira knelt beside the half-burnt underbrush, she saw something else.
Runes.
Tiny, precise—etched into the bark of a tree where the fire hadn't touched.
Trap runes.
Someone had drawn the beast in.
She stood quickly, heart racing.
"Elric didn't summon the storm wolf. Someone set him up."
A twig snapped behind her.
She spun, hand raised, magic sparking at her fingertips.
A figure stepped from the shadows, cloaked in gray, a silver pendant catching the light.
"Elira Ashthorn," the stranger said, voice calm but wary. "If you want the truth… you're not going to like who you have to trust next."