The night wrapped itself around the keep like a second skin—dense, silent, and suffocating. I lay deep in restless sleep, half-buried beneath furs still warm from the dying hearth. The darkness should've been restful, but instead, it buzzed with an unnatural tension.
Then came the tremor, not of earth or stone, but of soul. Tor… The voice curled into my dreams, soft and breaking like winter wind through brittle branches. Familiar. Achingly familiar. "Tor!" The next sound wasn't the voice; it was a growl, Gale. I startled awake, chest rising in sharp gasps as my wolf tore through the haze. He's reaching out, Gale rumbled in the back of my mind, restless and alert. Freyr. My heart thundered, the name alone enough to steal my breath.
Freyr.
