Alita clutched at her mother's gown, her fingers curling into the soft, familiar cotton fabric. The song soothed her, but the weight in her chest remained. After a moment, she drew back, her voice trembling.
"Mama… there is a wolf inside me," she confessed, her throat tightening as fresh tears welled in her eyes. "She is calling me. She is channeling my powers. We are bound. And there is something else… I feel others inside me. All the dreamwalkers. A hundred dark wolves. I feel darkness inside me, Mama… I feel darkness."