Where Welcome Begins

The sun had just slipped below the tree line when they crested the final ridge. The wind quieted.  No guards. No patrol scent markers. No formal challenge at the border. Only the subtle shift in resonance — like stepping from one song into another.

Veyra and Aerin slowed at the top of the slope, the forest falling away below them into wide, open woods touched by light that didn’t seem to come from the sun. It was softer here — deeper greens, richer shadows, and that hum beneath the soil that made it feel like the trees themselves were listening.

Ahead, near a natural stone arch wrapped in trailing ivy, a figure waited. Alone. No wolves flanked her. No weapons. No ceremonial garb. Just Luna Seraphine — standing barefoot in dark robes that swept the moss. Her silver-blonde hair was pulled into a long braid threaded with tiny bone charms and fragments of crystal, her arms bare, marked with old runes that shimmered faintly in the dusk.

She smiled when she saw them. Not politely. Not politically. A real smile — as if she’d been expecting them for longer than they’d been running. Veyra paused beside Aerin, their bodies still, tails lowered but not tucked. Her mist rippled softly across the stones as she stepped forward first. 

Seraphine held out a hand. Not commanding. Inviting. “Shift, child of balance. Let me greet you with breath, not teeth.”

Her voice wasn’t loud — and she hadn’t spoken it aloud. The words thrummed in Lexara’s chest, brushing against her resonance like a warm hand.

Veyra inhaled deeply, then let the shift come. It rolled over her in smooth waves — fur receding, bones folding inward, silver mist gathering before slipping into her skin like breath into lungs. Lexara stood on two feet again, her pack still secured and intact thanks to Eamon’s careful work. She unhooked the shoulder strap with one fluid pull, shrugging it off with a faint exhale. Grabbing her clothes in the process. 

The pendant from Rurik brushed against her chest. Bran’s journal thudded softly as it landed on moss with the bag. Kael’s blade pressed cool against her spine. All of them here. With her. In their own way. But none of them spoke, they weren’t there obviously. Because this moment? This was hers. Seraphine stepped forward. Lexara stood still. They didn’t bow. Neither of them offered submission.

Seraphine reached up slowly, fingers brushing Lexara’s cheek just once, as if checking she was real. “They didn’t deserve you, you know.”

Lexara’s throat tightened. “I didn’t leave for them.”

Seraphine’s smile softened. “I know. You left for yourself. Which is why this will work.”

Behind her, Aerin shifted as well — bones folding back, gray skin meeting the cooling air. Eamon didn’t say anything, just nodded to Seraphine with the quiet respect of a wolf who understood power when it didn’t roar.

Seraphine’s gaze flicked to him and back again. “You’re both safe here. There’s no council breathing down your spine. No protocol, ready to bite you if you speak too boldly.” She stepped back and gestured toward the archway of stone and ivy. “This isn’t just a place to rest, Lexara. It’s a place to unfold.”

Lexara didn’t answer at first. She looked past Seraphine, into the heart of the woods where a new path waited — quiet, dim, and alive with unfamiliar scents. It smelled like salt and pine and starlight. Like the echo of something she hadn’t named yet. Not home. Not yet.

But it didn’t smell like a cage. That was enough. She stepped forward. Eamon followed. And Seraphine? She walked beside them, no crown on her brow, no guards at her back. Just her presence. Just her power. Just the silence of a place that welcomed the flame without needing to hold it.