Chapter 12 The Echo That Stayed

• Kieran P.O.V
• The clearing was still shaking. Dust swirled in faint silver spirals where the creature had dissolved, and I stood frozen in the center of it, chest heaving, trying to pull air back into my lungs. My forearm wouldn’t stop glowing—no, thrumming. Each frantic heartbeat slammed into the crescent burned beneath my skin, and each pulse came back with the same echo, the same impossible imprint: her fear.
• Not imagined. Not dreamed.