Herbalists' Cache cen

phone post

morwenna had been quiet—too quiet. the storm behind her eyes churned, and for a moment, she looked every bit the stillness before a tempest, her body coiled and waiting.

but when sun eater surged forward, the dam inside her burst.

she met his lunge with a fury unholy—his name writ not on her tongue but in her wrath. as he brushed her aside, she twisted, surged with all the explosive power of a mother wronged. her body slammed upward beneath his jaw, the flat of her crown meeting bone with sickening force. she drove him back—headfirst into the den’s low edge, where the stone met him like a hammer.

the sound was a dull crack.

keep them at bay! she barked to blackhawk, voice like lightning, sharp and certain.

to ridgeback, whose eyes she met only briefly—now. the word was a command, but in it lived every ounce of trust she could offer. the plan. it was time.

morwenna turned to ishmira, voice softer now, but urgent and edged. run, girl. take caan—he is light. he will not slow you.

to other shore, her tail flicked once ghenaya. go. protect her.

to ridgeback again, her voice cutting through snow and chaos, take c’ed’e. he knows your scent. he will not cry.

and morwenna?

she bent low, gathered fa’liya in her jaws with a gentleness that belied her blaze, the girl’s tiny weight pressed into the shelter of her throat and chest.

without hesitation, she turned.

she vanished into the thicket—wreathed in winter’s white veil, in the screaming silence of falling snow. her breath was a fog trailing through briars, her blood a drumbeat against her ribs.

not for glory. not for defiance.

but for the only thing that mattered.

her children.

her vengeance would come later.