LOGINFaye’s pov I came back to awareness in fragments, as if my mind had been scattered and slowly pulled together again from somewhere far away. The first thing I felt was weight—heavy, pressing, and real—and then the second was silence. Not the silence of peace, but the kind that steals something from you while you are still conscious enough to notice it. The Lunaris echo was gone. For the first time since it had awakened inside the baby, I could not feel it at all. There was no warmth of silver light beneath my skin, no gentle pulse responding to my heartbeat, no protective hum that had become as natural to me as breathing. It was as if something fundamental had been cut away, leaving only the hollow awareness of its absence. My fingers tightened instinctively around the baby before I even fully opened my eyes. She was still there. But the connection that had once surrounded us both had been severed completely. When my vision finally cleared, I saw the dome. It surrounded us
Jacob’s pov I did not wait to hear the warning twice. The moment the bloodied messenger collapsed at my feet and forced out the words about Korran reaching the oak, something inside me snapped into motion before my mind could fully process the implications. There was no discussion, no hesitation, no careful planning left to consider. Everything narrowed into a single, unbearable truth. Faye and the child were at the oak. And Korran was already there. “Move!” I shouted before the messenger even finished speaking, my voice cutting through the stunned silence that followed his collapse. “All forces, now! We are not losing any more ground!” The pack reacted instantly, because they understood what I understood. There are moments in war where delay is not just dangerous, but irreversible. This was one of them. We left the camp behind with only a minimal guard, trusting those who remained to hold what little stability we still had. It was a risk I hated taking, but there was no alte
Faye The moment I stepped into the clearing around the old oak, I felt it in my bones that we were already too late in some way, even though the ritual had just begun. The tree stood like something ancient and wounded, its massive trunk wrapped in fading light that trembled as if it was struggling to remember its own strength. Black veins of corruption crawled across the bark and spread into the roots beneath our feet, and every step closer felt like walking deeper into something that wanted to swallow us whole. The baby pressed against my chest was the only steady thing in that place. Her warmth anchored me when everything else felt unstable. The Lunaris echo inside her pulsed in slow, deliberate waves, each one spilling faint silver light outward and feeding directly into the ritual forming around the oak. I could already feel it working, the way the land responded to her presence, the way the corruption recoiled in small but visible fractures. Elara stood at my side, he
Jacob As I stood at the edge of the main camp, watching Faye disappear into the forest with Elara and the small escort we had chosen, something in my chest tightened in a way I could not ignore. Every instinct I had told me to go with her, to stay close, to make sure nothing and no one got near her or the child. But instinct alone was not enough to win this war. Strategy demanded sacrifice, and today that sacrifice was distance. “She will be fine,” Riven said quietly as he stepped up beside me, following my gaze into the trees. I did not answer immediately, because I did not want to lie—not to him, and not to myself. “She has to be,” I said finally, my voice low but firm. “Because if that ritual fails, nothing we do here will matter.” The weight of that truth settled heavily between us, but there was no time to dwell on it. The camp behind us was already showing signs of strain. Wolves moved more slowly; they should have, their movements slightly delayed as the creeping corr
Faye I knew something was wrong long before anyone said it out loud, because the land itself felt different beneath my feet, like a heartbeat that had lost its rhythm and was struggling to remember how to continue. The central clearing, which had always been a place of quiet strength and balance, now carried a faint, unsettling heaviness that clung to the air and refused to lift. I crouched near the edge of the grass, brushing my fingers lightly over the blades, and my chest tightened as I watched the green fade into something darker, something wrong. The tips of the grass had begun to turn black, not burned, not frozen, but corrupted in a way that felt alive and creeping. It spread slowly, almost patiently, as though it knew it had time. “This is spreading faster than we thought,” Elara said from behind me, her voice steady but strained in a way she could not quite hide. I rose to my feet and turned toward her, watching as she moved between the healers gathered in the clearin
Jacob’s pov I could feel it before I saw it—the shift in the air, the way the ground itself seemed to recoil beneath our feet. Something was wrong with Korran’s crown. It was no longer just a weapon; it was unraveling, bleeding power in a way that felt wild and uncontained.The battlefield reflected that instability. Shadows flickered like dying flames, warriors shouted in confusion, and the once-coordinated enemy lines were breaking apart into desperate, chaotic fragments.“This is it,” I muttered under my breath, my pulse hammering as instinct sharpened every thought. This was the opening we had been waiting for, the moment where Korran was no longer untouchable.I raised my voice, letting it cut through the chaos. “Push forward! The crown is cracking—do not let him escape with it!”My command ignited something in the team. Riven surged ahead without hesitation, his blades flashing as he cut through the disoriented guards. Lira moved like a storm beside him, swift and precise, her
Jacob’s POV I stood in the middle of the council circle and looked around at the pack. Half the wolves stood on my left with their arms crossed and eyes locked on me. The other half stood on my right and kept glancing at Faye and the baby she held tight against her chest. Tension sat thick in the
Faye’s POV Jacob leaned heavily against my side on the horse while I kept one arm around him and the other around our daughter. The baby’s echo pulsed steadily through my chest and gave me just enough strength to hold us both upright. Every wolf in our group stayed close. Lira rode on the left w
Faye’s POVThe moment my daughter was back in my arms, everything inside me shifted.Not into peace. Not into safety. But into something sharper and more fragile. Relief so strong it almost made me dizzy. Fear so deep it refused to loosen its grip.Jacob helped me onto the horse, then climbed up be
Faye’s POV The training ground had become the only place where I felt even a fragment of control over myself. Every morning, I forced my feet to carry me there, my body aching from long days of human exhaustion and my mind heavy with what I had lost. Umfa. My bond. The instinct I had relied on to







