MasukAnd another chapter in!!! Tension is rising, rage is brimming and side enemies are forming… (Selene) The Prince feels insulted and Ava feels mistreated— the perfect combination for the wrong Combination. Lol. — oh, and there’s Revna. Don’t forget. See yA!
{Liam’s POV}The Dungeons Keep was quieter than I remembered after all the rebels had either been shown mercy and sent away or rehabilitated.For those few days, it felt like this keep had been a place of sound. Chains shifting. Guards muttering. Prisoners screaming. Even when no one spoke, the air itself had seemed to hum with tension, as if the stones remembered every crime committed within them.Now?Nothing.No whispers.No defiance.No venomous laughter echoing from behind iron bars.Just silence.Final and absolute.I stood at the threshold of the lower chamber, hands clasped behind my back, my boots planted on cold stone darkened by old blood. Torches burned steadily along the walls, their flames calm— too calm, casting long shadows that refused to move.Revna’s cell lay open.Empty.The shackles hung uselessly against the wall, silver cuffs dulled by time and friction. The floor had been scrubbed clean, but there were stains no amount of water could erase— not if you knew wher
{Ava’s POV}Today, the Palace was quiet in a way it had never been before.I stepped onto the eastern balcony as dusk settled over the Palace grounds, the sky bruised with soft violets and golds as the sun slipped behind the far ridges. Below, the city moved again— slowly, cautiously, alike something injured but alive. Lanterns flickered on one by one. Voices carried upward in low, human tones. I rested my hands on the stone railing, cool beneath my palms.For the first time after the war ended, no one was watching me.No guards hovering at my back. No council members whispering behind pillars. No soldiers measuring me like a weapon they didn’t understand.It was just peace. Certainty and quiet. There were suddenly footsteps behind me now, tangible but hesitant.I didn’t turn right away. I knew who it was.“You shouldn’t be alone,” Liam said quietly.“I’m not,” I replied. “I’m just not surrounded.”That earned a faint exhale behind me— something close to a laugh, stripped of humor b
{Ava’s POV}The training yard rang with the sound of impact.Steel against steel. Claws against claws. Boots scraping stone and breath tearing from lungs already pushed past comfort.I welcomed it.Pain was honest. Exhaustion was simple. They didn’t ask questions or drag memories back into the light.“Again,” I said.The warrior across from me—a Moonspire General with a healed scar across his cheek, hesitated for half a heartbeat before raising his guard again. He had learned, as most of them had, that hesitation was worse than recklessness when facing me.We circled.I felt the familiar hum beneath my skin—not the wild surge of the eclipse, not the consuming darkness of battle, but the steadier thing I was learning to live with. Control. I was sparring in order to learn control and be able to fight normally without triggering the eclipse energy. The General lunged.I sidestepped, hooked his ankle with my foot, and drove my shoulder into his chest. He hit the ground hard enough to k
{Ava’s POV}The Palace courtyard was quieter than it had been in weeks.Not empty— never empty anymore, but settled, like a body learning how to breathe again after nearly drowning. Guards stood watch with less tension in their shoulders while Citizens passed through the outer gates without flinching.Healing, I had learned, did not announce itself.I stood near the eastern colonnade, listening to the sound of boots on stone and the low murmur of voices beyond the walls. The air felt different now— lighter, but not free. Grief still lingered like smoke trapped in fabric.Edna had left me moments earlier to oversee the reassignment of combat units. She’d taken to command like it had always belonged to her, even if she still rolled her eyes whenever someone called her Captain.I was alone.Or so I thought.I sensed him before I saw him.It wasn’t the bond of memory— those had dulled with time and pain, but the faint, familiar tug of recognition. The way your body remembers something you
{Ava’s POV}~ Some Days Later ~ The bells began at dawn.Not the sharp, celebratory chime used for victories or coronations— but the low, slow toll reserved for endings that mattered. Each strike rolled across the Palace grounds like a breath released too carefully, echoing through stone corridors, over battlements, down into streets still stained with the memory of war.They rang for Calita.I stood at the foot of the Palace steps, hands bare, shoulders unarmored, the morning air cold against my skin. I hadn’t worn my armor or any important clothing today. I hadn’t worn anything that marked me as Eclipse-born, or Warg, or future anything. Just black cloth and the weight of knowing exactly who we were about to lay to rest.They brought her out slowly.The casket was simple— dark wood, moon-carved, unadorned by sigils or rank. That had been my choice. Calita had never wanted attention. She had spent her life in the spaces behind others, in the pauses between danger and disaster, doing
{Ava’s POV}The Palace had learned a new kind of silence.Not the fearful hush that crept through corridors during the war, nor the brittle quiet that followed death and judgment— but something gentler. Heavier. A silence that held memory instead of dread.I stood on the eastern balcony just as dawn crept over the city, the horizon painted in soft gold and pale blue. The Palace city stretched below me— scarred, rebuilding, breathing again. Smoke no longer rose from broken towers. The bells were silent now, resting after days of mourning and victory and too many names carved into stone.For the first time since everything broke, the world wasn’t asking anything of me.I rested my hands on the cool stone railing, flexing my fingers slowly. The shadows beneath my skin were quiet— present, but calm. Not coiled. Not hungry. Just there, like a steady pulse beneath my ribs.I didn’t realize how much I’d needed that until now.Footsteps approached behind me.I didn’t turn as I knew who it was







