Zane~
My father looked at me with a strange, almost unsettling expression—his eyes glinting with something too unreadable to name. Hope? Worry? Anticipation? It made my stomach twist. He stood there by the fire, bathed in its orange glow, the lines of burden etched deeper across his features than I'd ever seen before.
"Think about it, Zane," he said, his voice low but heavy, the words dragging against the silence. "Really think. If this vision of Owen's is real… if there's even the slightest chance that what he saw might come to pass, then I want the Wolf Spirit here. Watching. Guarding. He could tip the balance."
He wasn't asking. He was pleading in the only way a king ever does—with command hidden beneath desperation.
