The silver flames froze mid-flicker as the child stepped through the archway.
Mara's scream shattered the silence. "Lena! No!"
But her granddaughter didn't burn. The fire flowed around the girl like water, soaking into her skin until her veins glowed beneath the surface. When she turned, her eyes had become pools of liquid moonlight.
"She's here," Lena whispered...except the voice belonged to someone much older.
The archway groaned as new names carved themselves into the bones. Selene's markings burned in sympathy, the scars on her arms rearranging to match the fresh inscriptions. She stumbled forward, drawn by some primal pull...
Kael's shadows lashed out, wrapping around her waist. "Don't." His breath came ragged against her ear. "Look at her feet."
Lena wasn't standing in the flames.
She was floating three inches above them.
The True First Shadow
The memory unfolded without warning:
The original Lirya...not the twisted child-entity, but a young woman with wild curls and kind eyes...stood before a different archway. Her hands glowed with the same silver light now pouring from Lena's mouth as she addressed a crowd of shadow wolves.
"The ritual needs three anchors," she explained, tracing symbols in the air that matched Selene's scars. "One to remember, one to hold, and one to..." Her voice faltered. "To say goodbye when it's done."
Alaric stepped forward, his hands already bleeding from self-inflicted cuts. "There has to be another way."
Lirya kissed his brow. "This is the way."
Then the vision fractured...
...showing Lirya convulsing as her own shadows turned against her...
...Alaric screaming as he tried to pull the darkness from her skin...
...and finally, the moment he sealed her half-completed essence into the first altar, dooming her to eternity as a fractured echo.
The memory ended with Lena's gasp.
She collapsed into the silver flames.
And the archway changed.
The Price of Remembrance
Bones cracked and reformed, the structure twisting into a new shape...a doorway flanked by two figures. One clearly Alaric, his stone face twisted in grief. The other...
Selene's breath caught.
The second figure had no distinct features, just a smooth surface where the face should be. As she watched, fresh markings carved themselves across its blank expanse...matching her scars stroke for stroke.
Lirya...the child-shaped echo...let out a sound too wretched to be human. "You were supposed to be me!"
The truth hit Selene like a physical blow.
All this time, the First Shadow hadn't been trying to escape.
She'd been trying to replace herself.
Kael's grip on Selene tightened. "We need to go. Now."
But Lena rose from the flames, her glowing hand outstretched toward Selene. "She needs you to finish it."
Mara lunged for her granddaughter. "Don't touch..."
The moment their hands connected, the old warrior's scream turned to song.
An ancient lullaby.
The same one Lirya had hummed in Selene's dreams.
The Final Choice
The transformed archway pulsed with terrible energy. On one side, the child-Lirya screeched and clawed at her own face. On the other, Lena and Mara stood transfixed, silver light pouring from their mouths and eyes.
Kael turned Selene to face him. His shadows had gone completely still...an unnatural calm before the storm. "However this ends," he murmured, pressing his forehead to hers, "we do it together."
Selene's scars burned hotter than ever. She could feel the ritual's pull, the weight of centuries pressing down on her. The original Lirya had sacrificed herself to create something beautiful. Alaric's fear had corrupted it into a weapon.
And now?
Now the choice was hers.
She stepped toward the archway.
Toward the faceless figure with her markings.
Toward the truth.
Lena's voice followed her: "Don't be afraid. It doesn't hurt."
The lie tasted like ashes.