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last update Last Updated: 2023-12-18 01:19:19

*Isaac*

Four days earlier…

Cassian crouches on the other side of the fire, balancing on his heels. His pen scribbles over the notepad resting on his knee. He pauses, cursing under his breath,and tears the page free before crumpling it and throwing it in the fire.

“What the fuck am I even supposed to say?” he says to himself, growling low in his throat as he makes a single mark on the page before sinking into a seated position on the hard ground.

Trees choked by moss, their branches long dead, surround us. Behind us, miles of open plains stretch all the way back to Moorn. It took us days to reach this place.

Several dozen camps light up the edge of the forest. Wolves pass back and forth in groups of three or four, and small groups of warriors in their human forms gather around fires just like this one, eating, drinking, and resting.

Or trying to put words down on paper to send back home.

Phones don’t work this far from any settlement.

“Just tell her you're alive,” I mumble, scrat
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