Masuk(Elara’s POV)The world snapped back into place with a violent jolt.The stone bridge shuddered beneath us, ancient magic tearing at its seams like the mountain itself was trying to spit us out. Dust rained from above, choking the air, rattling my teeth. Kyren still held my arm, jaw clenched, wings half-spread to shield me from the worst of the falling debris.Riven was already in front of us, blades drawn, eyes burning blood-red against the dim.Silas....He wasn’t moving.Not forward.Not toward the exit.He stood backward, toward the collapsing edge, shoulders trembling under the weight of shadows writhing over his skin like living ink.“Silas?” I shouted over the roar.His head tilted just enough for me to see one eye, void-black, and wrong.“A barrier,” he rasped. “They sealed us in. Only a siphon can break it.”Kyren cursed. “Don’t do something—”“Stupid?” Silas gave a broken laugh. “Too late.”The shadows exploded outward.I felt it through the bond before I understood it, pai
( Elara’s POV ) The world didn’t break.It erupted.The ruins split open along ancient fault lines, silver-white light exploding upward in jagged columns that carved through the darkness like spears. My knees buckled. Kyren caught me before I hit the ground, but even he grunted under the force of the magic ripping through me.It wasn’t a surge.It was a detonation.My veins burned with molten moonlight, every pulse a shockwave that traveled down the bond-lines and slammed into the four men surrounding me.Riven staggered back with a snarl, planting a hand against the wall.Silas dropped to one knee, sweat beading along his temple as he fought to keep his shadow, magic from lashing outward in panic.Ashen’s breath punched out of him in a rough gasp, runic markings flaring along his arms with lines he hadn’t summoned, lines he’d lost control of.Kyren held firm.Barely.His flame, cored magic roared to life, wrapping around me, around us, trying desperately to contain the blast.But no
( Kyren’s POV )She said it so quietly I almost thought I imagined it.“I have to choose one of you.”The words dropped into the ruins like a blade.Everything inside me went still.Not silent.Not numb.Just… still.Like the air before a wildfire ignites.Elara’s breath trembled out of her. Riven’s jaw flexed. Silas froze mid-movement, his hand still pressed to her shoulder. Ashen’s eyes narrowed, calculating and calm in that unnerving way of his.But me?My heart didn’t beat for a full second.Then it slammed back into motion hard enough to hurt.“No,” I said before I realized I’d spoken.Her gaze snapped to mine, open, frightened, already apologizing.I hated that look.I hated that she thought she had to wear it with us.“Elara,” I said, stepping closer, “you don’t have to—”“She does,” Ashen cut in, voice steady but low. “The Pact—”“Don’t,” I growled, rounding on him. “Not now.”He lifted his chin. “You think denying it will change the truth?”Riven stepped between us before I c
The world didn’t reform all at once.It unfolded from petal by petal, breath by breath and like someone pulling a curtain from my eyes. I stood in Willowmere’s heart, the place I’d glimpsed only in fevered flashes and broken dreams with shards.But this Willowmere wasn’t memory, soft or ghost but blurred.It was alive.The air shimmered with ripples of moonlight, though the sun hung high above a canopy of ancient silverleaf trees. Petals drifted in slow spirals through the air, pale as frost. The river murmured in the distance, the sound threaded with faint music with no instrument, just magic humming through water and stone.And she stood in front of me.My mirror. My twin. My impossible reflection.The First Moon Maiden.“Elara,” she said again, the way someone speaks a word they used to own. “You’ve taken long enough.”My mouth went dry. “You… know my name.”Her smile curved. “I knew it before you were born.”Right.Not terrifying at all.I swallowed, forcing my heartbeat to slow.
The ruins didn’t change.At least… not in the way the physical world should.The broken archways remained collapsed. The shattered murals still lay in pieces across the ground. The pale vines still coiled up pillars carved with moon phases older than any kingdom.But the air had shifted.It pressed against my skin like a velvet palm. Heavy. Aware. Expectant.As if the ruins themselves knew I had returned.Kyren stayed close at my right, every step silent, his eyes flicking from shadow to shadow with a feline prowl that betrayed his tension. Riven walked on my left, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of his blade. Silas walked ahead, his posture deceptively relaxed. And Ashen followed behind me, gaze pinned to the old symbols etched into stone.The five of them formed a loose circle around me.A formation.A protective instinct none of them admitted aloud.The deeper we went, the thicker the magic became. Like fog you could taste.“The pulse is stronger here,” Silas murmured, tilting
( Elara’s POV ) The chamber felt smaller after the words left my mouth.Not physically, but in the way the air thickened, the way the old stone seemed to listen, the way my mates closed in around me like a shield the world couldn’t pry apart.Kyren was the first to move.Not to speak or, to move.Shadows exploded outward from his spine, curling like smoke, slamming into the ruined walls hard enough that the moon-carvings cracked.“Kyren—” Silas warned.“Don’t.” Kyren’s voice was a dark snarl. “Don’t tell me to calm down when the Devourer is hunting the center of our bond.”Ashen stood on my other side, heat radiating so intensely the air shimmered. His jaw clenched, muscles ticking with the effort not to burn the ruins to ash.Riven didn’t speak at all.He simply stepped behind me, hands settling on my shoulders, grounding, claiming, protective. His voice, when it came, was quiet enough to be terrifying.“Tell us everything she said.”I swallowed hard. “She told me I wasn’t fighting







