Chapter 24: The Howl and The Hunger
The sun at their backs cast long, hysterical shadows, and the open plain beyond the temple was nothing but grass and the faint, untrustworthy promise of a spring thaw.
They kept moving, silent except for the dog’s ragged panting and the drag of Thorin’s bad foot through the crusted snow.
Apollo felt the gold in him settle to a slow, sullen burn, the lines of it seeping up his wrists and into the webbing of his hands.
It showed only in the corners of his vision, but he was aware of every shimmer, every pulse, as if the veins themselves had learned to speak.
They passed the ruined wall, then a skeleton of orchard, the trees hunched and half-collapsed under the weight of a winter that would not admit to ending.
The dog stopped, sniffed the air, then whined. Lyra tensed, shoulders gone rigid under the battered coat.
She said nothing, but Apollo could feel the warning radiate off her skin.
Nik broke the silence first. "If we put enough miles between us and that place, maybe the stars’ll forget," he said, but the words sounded borrowed from another life.
They skirted a copse of dead willows, the ground beneath spongy and treacherous.
At the heart of the grove, Apollo saw the remains of a fire, recent, judging by the warmth still venting from the blackened pit.
He knelt, touched the ash, and the gold in his fingertips sparked, just faintly.
"Someone else is close," he said, voice pitched low.