Winter solstice dawned silent and still, the first frost painting the rebuilt hall's thatched roof in delicate silver. Selene stood at the tree line, watching her breath fog in the air as she waited for the sunrise ritual to begin.
Three years had changed everything.
The settlement had tripled in size...not just with returning pack members, but with shadow wolves from distant territories who'd felt the call of the broken cycle. Their markings varied wildly. Some bore the old sigils like Selene, others sported Lena's swirling silver patterns, a few even had Kael's long-gone shadow stains permanently etched into their skin.
A small body barreled into her legs.
"Ma! The pup's doing the thing again!"
Selene hoisted two-year-old Aric onto her hip, brushing his dark curls back from his forehead. The markings there...a perfect blend of her sigils and Kael's faded shadow stains...glowed faintly as he squirmed.
"Which thing?" she asked, already knowing the answer.
Aric screwed up his face in concentration. Shadows pooled in his cupped hands, forming a wobbly sphere that slowly resolved into...
"A wolf?" Selene guessed.
"Uncle Cy!" he crowed triumphantly as the shadow figure waved.
The sound of approaching footsteps made them both turn. Kael moved through the frost-kissed grass with easy confidence, his arms laden with firewood. The years had been kind to him...the permanent laugh lines around his eyes more pronounced now that they weren't constantly narrowed in suspicion.
"Lena says the ceremony's ready," he announced, leaning in to kiss Aric's shadow-mess before pressing his forehead to Selene's. "You nervous?"
She touched the silver scars on her wrist...dimmer now, but still present. "Just wondering what she's planned. Last solstice we had floating shadow lanterns for a week."
Kael's grin was all mischief. "Wait till you see the..."
A chorus of gasps interrupted him.
They turned as one toward the gathering circle, where Lirya stood with her arms raised. But it wasn't the former echo who'd caused the commotion...it was the massive spectral wolf materializing behind her, its form woven from starlight and memory.
Aric squealed. "Grandma!"
Selene's breath caught. The wolf's eyes...one amber, one silver...were unmistakably her mother's.
Lirya met Selene's gaze across the crowd and winked. "Some stories need telling," her voice whispered directly into Selene's mind.
Then the ritual began in earnest.
The Shadow and the Flame
Lena, now nearly as tall as Mara, moved through the circle with a torch in each hand. At seventeen, she'd grown into her role as rememberer with solemn grace...though the silver gleam in her eyes still promised mischief when the elders weren't looking.
"The first flame," she announced, lighting the central bonfire, "for those we've lost."
The spectral wolf howled as the fire roared to life.
"The second flame," Lena continued, moving to a smaller brazier, "for those who remain."
Mara...her hair fully gray now, her arms covered in protective runes...stepped forward to add a bundle of herbs. The smoke curled into strange shapes above their heads: a crow, a key, a cradle.
Aric clapped his hands in delight, nearly toppling from Selene's arms. Kael rescued him just in time, tossing the giggling toddler onto his shoulders as Lena approached with the final torch.
"And the third flame," she said softly, offering it to Selene, "for what grows anew."
The moment Selene's fingers closed around the torch, her markings flared to life...not painfully as they once had, but warmly, like coming home. She touched the flame to a third brazier at the circle's edge, where the youngest shadow wolves waited.
The fire bloomed blue.
Then green.
Then a dozen impossible colors as the children's laughter rose with the smoke.
The Last Gift
Deep in the night, when the feasting had ended and Aric lay curled asleep in Kael's arms, Selene found Lirya by the old standing stones.
The woman who had been an echo sat with her face turned to the stars, her form slightly translucent at the edges.
"You're fading," Selene said softly.
Lirya's smile was peaceful. "All stories end."
She reached out, pressing something cold into Selene's palm...a tiny bone figurine of a wolf howling at the moon.
"For Aric," Lirya whispered. "So he never forgets where we came from."
As Selene watched, the last of Lirya's solid form dissolved into moonlight, leaving only the echo of a lullaby on the wind.
Back at the hall, a chorus of young voices rose in answer...not the old mourning song, but something new. Something hopeful.
Kael appeared at her shoulder, Aric now awake and reaching for Selene with shadow-wreathed fingers.
"Come on," he murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple. "Your pack needs you."
And so she went.