"What did you see?"
"Him." I gripped James's arms, using him to anchor myself to reality. "He's close. At the ridge. Just standing there, staring at nothing."
"Did he see you? Through the bond?"
I hesitated. The vision replayed in my mind—those empty yellow eyes, the hollow gaze, the brief flicker that might have meant something or might have meant nothing.
"I don't know. I don't think so. There's nothing left to see with." I swallowed hard. "James, he's worse than I expected. The visions made it seem like he was fighting. Struggling. But what I just saw..."
"What?"
"He's given up. Whatever part of him was holding on, it's let go. He's not fighting anymore. He's just... waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
I didn't answer. Didn't have to.
Waiting to die.
The final approach to the ridge was brutal.
The slope steepened, the wind intensified, and the clouds that had been building all day began to descend. Visibility dropped to fifty feet, then thirty, then less. We climbed by feel as much as sight, trusting the map in my head and the pull in my chest.
James stayed close. Through the bond, I felt his alertness—wolf senses engaged, tracking something I couldn't perceive.
"He knows we're here," James said quietly.
"You can tell?"
"I can smell him. Faint, but there. And something else—" He paused, head tilting in a way that was more wolf than human. "Fear. He's afraid of us."
Good, I thought. Fear meant awareness. Fear meant there was still something in there capable of feeling.
But I didn't say it out loud. Didn't want to give myself false hope.
We kept climbing.
The ridge materialized out of the clouds like a wall—sudden and imposing, dark rock rising against gray sky. I stopped at its base, catching my breath, and felt James do the same beside me.
"This is it," I said. "The place from my visions."
"Where is he?"
"Close." The partial bond was louder now, a constant pressure beneath my ribs. "On the other side. There's a cave there—a natural shelter. That's where he dens."
James looked at me. "How do you want to play this?"
"Carefully. He's unpredictable, and we're invading his territory. I'll go first—try to get close enough to make contact through the bond. You stay back, but not too far. If he attacks—"
"He won't."
"James—"
"He won't." His jaw set in that stubborn way. "You said the bond is an anchor. That it can reach him even when nothing else can. So reach him. I'll be right here."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to list all the ways this could go wrong—the violence of a cornered feral, the impossibility of reaching someone who'd been lost this long, the very real chance that I was wrong about everything.
Instead, I just nodded.
