The white silence lasted three heartbeats.
Then the world rushed back in a cacophony of sound and sensation...Mara's ragged sobs, the acrid tang of spent magic, the archway's bones crumbling to ash around them. At the center of it all stood Lirya...no longer an echo, no longer a child, but a woman carved from moonlight and grief.
Her hands trembled as she cradled Lena's limp form. The girl's chest rose and fell in shallow breaths, the dagger still protruding from her ribs. Not steel anymore, but solidified shadow...the same substance as Kael's transformed arms.
"She's alive?" Selene's voice cracked.
Lirya's eyes...one blue, one now silver...lifted to hers. "Barely."
Mara collapsed to her knees. "I didn't know... I thought..."
"You thought killing the rememberer would end the cycle." Lirya's voice held no malice, only exhaustion. "It nearly did."
Kael's shadows stirred weakly at his feet. The dance had changed them too...where once they'd coiled like living smoke, they now lay flat and dull against the stones, barely more than stains.
Selene reached for him, her marked arms aching. "Your power..."
"Gone." He flexed his fingers, watching the last wisp of darkness curl around his wrist before dissolving. "Worth it."
A wet cough drew their attention back to Lena. The girl's eyelids fluttered, her small hand grasping at Lirya's sleeve. "Did... did we fix it?"
Lirya's smile was the saddest thing Selene had ever seen.
The Last Shadow
They carried Lena to what remained of the great hall...now little more than a circle of standing stones open to the sky. The survivors followed in stunned silence, their eyes darting between Lirya's transformed figure and the strange new markings that had appeared on their own skin overnight.
Mara kept her distance, her knife hand wrapped in bloodied bandages.
"She needs the archway's remains," Lirya instructed, laying Lena on a flat stone at the center. "What's left of its power might..."
Selene didn't need to hear the rest. She moved through the ruins, gathering bone fragments still warm with residual magic. Kael worked beside her, his movements slower without his shadows, but no less determined.
"You realize what this means," he murmured as they piled the shards around Lena's still form. "No more Blood Moons. No more altars."
Selene touched her mother's markings...now faded to silver scars. "But the shadows remain."
A commotion at the circle's edge interrupted them. One of the younger warriors...a boy no older than sixteen...was staring at his hands in wonder. As they watched, tendrils of darkness curled from his fingertips, weak but unmistakable.
Lirya's breath caught. "It's spreading."
Not a curse.
A gift.
The First Morning
Dawn came softly for the first time in centuries.
True sunlight, unfiltered by crimson haze, painted the ruins in gold and amber. Lena slept peacefully beneath a blanket of woven shadows...her wound closed, though the knife's hilt remained embedded like some strange jewel.
Mara approached as Selene kept watch. The old warrior looked decades older, her shoulders bowed under the weight of realization. "I thought we were saving them," she whispered. "All these years... we were the monsters."
Selene studied the new markings creeping up Mara's arms...not the jagged sigils of old, but something softer. Fluid. "We all were."
Nearby, Kael helped Lirya rebuild the hearthstone. The former echo moved with human clumsiness, her borrowed body still learning its limits. When she caught Selene watching, she lifted a hand...not in farewell, but invitation.
The message was clear:
This is your home too.
Three Moons Later
The first shadow wolf pup was born at the height of summer.
Selene cradled the squirming bundle while Kael kept the anxious parents calm. The infant's markings glowed faintly as she nursed, her tiny fingers already weaving darkness into shapes.
Across the firepit, Lena...now sporting a wicked scar and a permanent silver gleam in her eyes...entertained a gaggle of children by making shadow puppets. Their laughter echoed through the rebuilt hall, mingling with the night breeze.
Lirya appeared at Selene's shoulder, her dual-colored eyes crinkling. "She's beautiful."
The infant yawned, exhaling a wisp of shadow that curled into a perfect moon shape before dissolving.
Kael's hand found Selene's, his fingers warm and solid and human. "What do we call her?"
Selene didn't hesitate.
"Hope."
Somewhere in the distance, a lone wolf howled...not in mourning, but in joy. The sound carried on the wind, weaving through the trees, through the stones, through the very bones of the earth.
And if it sounded suspiciously like a lullaby?
Well.
Some memories were worth keeping.