The silence in the Alpha's hall was pregnant with unspoken words, charged with the weight of a storm ready to explode. Selene could feel her own heartbeat drumming in her ears, but she would not let it show. Caden faced her, knuckles screaming around the throne’s armrests, body tightly coiled like a predator biding its time before crush and kill.
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t back down.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” Caden said again, in a deeper voice, measured. But there was something behind what he had said, something dark and unreadable.
Selene scoffed. “What, scared of a little unfinished business?” She took one slow step forward, and she saw it — hesitation. He may have attempted to disguise it, but she was too familiar with him. Her return rattled him about something.
Rowan, who was standing next to her, crossed his arms. “Not the heat welcome I was expecting. But hey, I guess since you tried to have her executed, we should’ve lowered the bar.”
The Veil screamed.It was not a sound that lived in air or ears, but one that split the mind. Selene clutched her skull as the ground beneath her vibrated, not from tremor but from unraveling. The magic that once held the realms in careful balance between life, death, spirit, and matter was tearing at the seams. The rift yawned wider behind the goddess’s vanished form, bleeding tendrils of darkness into the atmosphere, staining the sky like oil in water.Beside Selene, Aelira swayed, her light flickering wildly. Rowan had one arm wrapped around her waist, keeping her upright as her energy fluctuated between lunar brilliance and void-born shadow. Agnes pressed her palm to the earth, trying to anchor herself in the leyline's remaining stability, but her face had gone pale, eyes rimmed in panic.“There’s no balance left,” Agnes murmured. “The ley is collapsing into itself.”“What does that mean?” Rowan asked, his voice raw.“It means the Veil isn’t separating the realms anymore,” Agnes w
The ground beneath Selene's boots felt too still, as if the world itself were holding its breath. The rift that had once been only light and threat now framed a figure that should never have existed in flesh. The Forgotten Sister had crossed no longer whispering from the Veil, no longer wearing Aelira’s form or speaking through fractured seers. She stood now in full form, draped in robes that shimmered like woven dusk, her skin pale as snowfall, her eyes fathomless, void of pupil or iris only memory.She looked nothing like Selene expected. There was no monstrous crown of power, no crackling storms swirling around her. She was still. Elegant. Calm. And somehow, that made it worse.Selene stepped forward slowly, shielding Aelira’s unconscious body with her own. Rowan moved behind her without question, blade drawn, magic thrumming in his veins, but waiting for her lead. Agnes whispered protections under her breath, but even her ancient knowledge could not mask the fear in her eyes. Vera
The sky split like fabric beneath a blade. From the rift, the Forgotten Sister began to descend not as a body, but as a presence. Her form was composed of starlight and void, her outline too vast to comprehend. Her eyes held no color, only the reflection of every mistake ever made. Trees bent away from her lightless gravity, and the Hollowborn knelt with their heads bowed low, their limbs trembling not from reverence, but subjugation.Selene held Aelira tightly, their magic entangled in a luminous web of blood and memory. The girl shivered in her arms, her silver eyes glowing erratically, like a mirror trying to reflect two suns at once. The goddess’s voice had not spoken aloud, but Selene felt it inside her spine, a cold whisper coiling between her ribs.You opened the cradle. You remembered what was meant to be lost.Aelira gritted her teeth, her voice sharp with panic and pain. “She’s clawing through the leyline. Every time I breathe, she pulls more. She’s measuring me.”“She’s us
The air cracked like thin ice underweight. Silver light spilled from Selene’s skin, meeting the violet shimmer that curled around Aelira’s outstretched hands. Their energies collided mid-air, mother and daughter locked not by hatred, but by memory, pain, and something far more dangerous: fear of what they might become.Selene did not strike first. She had not come to destroy. But Aelira did not hesitate, and her magic came not with rage, but with grief so refined it no longer needed to scream. The Hollowborn moved behind her in synchrony, limbs stuttering with that unnerving fluidity of creatures caught between life and undeath.Rowan and Vera were already at Selene’s flanks, forming a triangle of resistance as the Hollowborn surged. Agnes dropped her staff to the ground and began chanting, her voice trembling as she tried to anchor the leyline beneath their feet. But it was Aelira who held Selene’s full attention. The daughter she’d forgotten. The girl who had become something more a
The wind howled across Caelthorn Ridge, thick with ash and memory. The scent of scorched magic hung in the air, clinging to Selene’s cloak like regret. She stood on the highest crest, eyes locked on the horizon where the leyline fracture throbbed like a wound in the sky. Behind her, Rowan, Agnes, and Vera moved in silence, each of them aware that this battle would not be like the others. This wasn’t just a clash of blades and wills—it was the crossing of something far more fragile: blood, identity, and memory long denied.“They’re close,” Rowan murmured, his voice low.“I can feel her,” Selene replied. “Like a breath I forgot I used to take.”Agnes turned, her eyes filled with the ancient weight of things left unsaid. “Selene, there’s something I must tell you. Something I knew but kept from you, because I thought it would protect you. But now, it may cost you everything if I stay silent.”Selene faced her slowly, her voice calm. “Speak.”Agnes took a steadying breath. “Your daughter
Selene stood before the monolith, her body still, but her soul churning like the sea in a storm. The name Aelira glows faintly on the stone, each letter carved not just in magic, but in grief.“I gave her away,” she said, barely above a whisper.Rowan remained beside her, silent, not from confusion but from reverence. He knew better than to fill this silence with comfort. Some truths demanded to echo.Agnes stepped forward, eyes trained on the glowing inscription. “Selene… are you certain this isn’t some cruel vision? The mind plays tricks when wounded.”“No,” Selene replied. Her voice was steady now, though her fingers trembled. “I remember her. A cradle made of carved pine. She had my eyes. She used to grab my braid when I carried her on my back.”“How could you forget?” Vera asked softly, almost accusingly.“I didn’t forget. I sacrificed the memory,” Selene snapped, then winced at her own bitterness. She turned toward them, shame warring with rage in her expression. “The Watchers a