Chapter 76

Maren

The lake was still. Too still.

Even the trees that lined its edge seemed to hold their breath, their leaves motionless, the world caught in a silence that didn’t feel empty — it felt waiting.

I stopped at the water’s edge, gravel crunching softly beneath my boots. The air smelled different here. Not the clean pine and damp earth of the forest, but salt. Like the ocean. Like something that di