Chapter 317

AURELIA’S POV My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. No matter how many times I wiped them on the dirt, I could still feel the phantom warmth of blood clinging to my skin. The forest was silent again — too silent — as if even the trees were afraid of me now. My shadow moved faintly at my feet, writhing like something half-alive, and I took another step back just to get away from it. “What have I done?” I whispered, but the words dissolved in the cold air. A shudder rippled through me. Every instinct screamed to run, but my legs refused to move. My body trembled with exhaustion, my head spinning with the memory of what I’d just seen — what I had done. And then I smelled it. That scent. Familiar. Heavy. Dripping with old memories and older pain. Cedar and smoke — but not Derek’s. No, this one carried a sharper undertone of iron and pine resin. The scent of battlefields, of betrayal, of him. My pulse skipped a beat. No. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t— The crunch of footsteps confirmed what my heart