Chapter 12: Beneath the River’s Breath
The river didn’t move the way it used to.
Not since that day.
Magnolia stood at its edge, staring into the shifting water, and realized the surface didn’t ripple with wind it pulsed with memory. Like it was breathing. Alive. Watching her.
It was cold. Colder than it should have been in spring.
Mist hovered above the water in a slow, curling dance, and every few seconds, it parted just long enough for her to glimpse a shape beneath the surface. A shadow that didn’t belong to her. A face that wasn’t her own.
Camille.
Not as she was now, but as she had been.
Seven.
Drenched. Laughing. Innocent.
Before everything fractured.
Magnolia dropped to her knees at the riverbank, fingers brushing the wet stones, skin tingling as the mist clung to her like fog with a pulse. Her wolf stirred under her skin, restless and wary.