The moment Selene's fingers brushed the faceless figure, the world shattered.
Not into fragments, but into truth.
The stone face beneath her palm softened, features resolving like ink in water...high cheekbones she'd traced as a child, the stubborn set of a jaw she'd inherited, the thin scar above the brow from a long-ago hunt.
Mother.
The realization struck like a blade between the ribs. This wasn't just a statue. It was a grave marker.
Lena's voice echoed from far away: "She almost succeeded where Alaric failed."
Then the vision took her.
The Last Vessel
Her mother stood in this very spot years ago, the archway half-built, her arms already marked with the same sigils Selene now bore. Not a prisoner...a volunteer.
"It needs a living anchor," she explained to a younger Mara, who clutched a swaddled infant (Lena?) tight to her chest. "The child-echo is just a shadow of what Lirya was meant to be. But I can fix that."
Mara's voice cracked. "At what cost?"
Selene's mother pressed a kiss to the baby's forehead. "Only me."
Then she stepped into the archway...
...and screamed as the stone swallowed her whole.
The memory dissolved into chaos: Alaric's descendants storming the site, Mara fighting to protect the infant, the ritual abandoned once more.
Selene wrenched back to the present with a gasp. The figure's face had fully formed now, frozen in an expression of terrible peace.
Kael's shadows thrashed behind her. "Selene, don't..."
Lirya's child-echo let out a wail that shook the ruins. "She was MINE!"
The ground split open between them.
Alaric's Conscience
Kael's shadows moved without his command.
They lashed around Lirya's flailing form, not to restrain, but to soothe. The action felt practiced, instinctive...like a brother calming a sister's nightmare.
Selene stared. "You're not just shadows…"
"No," whispered a voice from the archway. Not Lena's. Not Lirya's.
Alaric's.
The realization struck like lightning: Kael's shadows carried the first Alpha's guilt, passed down through generations like a cursed inheritance. They'd been trying to fix this since the beginning.
Lena stepped forward, her glowing hands outstretched. "It's time."
Mara grabbed her granddaughter's arm. "You don't have to..."
"Yes, I do." Lena's eyes were ancient in her child's face. "I'm the rememberer. You're the holder. And she..." A glance at Selene. "...is the one who says goodbye."
The ritual's final requirement crystallized:
To free Lirya's echo, someone had to take her place.
Just as Selene's mother had tried to do.
The Choice
Lirya's wails turned to whimpers as Kael's shadows cradled her. "I just wanted to go home," the child-voice hiccuped.
Selene touched the statue's face...her mother's face. "I know."
She could finish the ritual now. Step into the archway and let the stone claim her, just as it had her mother. Become the anchor Lirya was meant to be.
Or…
She looked at Kael. At the shadows that had once been Alaric's remorse, now twined protectively around his arms. At Lena and Mara, the last pieces of this broken legacy.
There was another way.
Selene pressed her marked palm to the statue's chest. "You've waited long enough."
The stone screamed as it cracked open.