The statue exploded outward in a shower of stone and silver light.
Selene threw up her arms, expecting shrapnel...but the fragments dissolved midair, becoming mist that coiled around her marked skin like living ink. The archway groaned as new sigils burned themselves into its bones, completing patterns half-finished for centuries.
Then the screaming started.
Not from the ruins.
From inside her.
Her mother's voice...not a memory, not an echo, but the woman herself...howled through Selene's veins: "You weren't supposed to FOLLOW ME!"
Kael lunged as Selene collapsed, his shadows lashing out to catch her. But the moment they touched the silver mist, the impossible happened...
His shadows sang.
The same lullaby Lena had hummed. The same melody Lirya's echo had weaponized. Now it poured from Kael's throat unbidden, his eyes rolling back as Alaric's memories flooded through him.
Mara dragged Lena away from the chaos. "The anchor's breaking!"
But the child...glowing brighter than ever...shook her head. "No. It's finally holding."
The Shattered Vow
Selene's vision doubled. Tripled.
One moment she saw Kael's terrified face above her. The next, she stood beside her mother in the past, watching as the original ritual unfolded:
Her mother gripped Alaric's hands as the silver fire consumed them both. "You have to let me go," she begged. "Or she'll never be free!"
Alaric's tears turned to steam on his cheeks. "I can't lose you too."
Then...
...the fatal hesitation.
...the half-finished ritual.
...her mother's essence fracturing as the stone swallowed her.
The vision shifted,
Mara as a young warrior, pressing a squirming infant (Lena?) into the arms of a shadow wolf. "Take her where they'll never look," she ordered. "Where the bloodlines can't find her."
Selene gasped back to the present just as the silver mist yanked...
...not toward the archway.
Toward Lirya's echo.
The child-shaped entity stood transfixed, her too-wide mouth open in a silent scream as the mist poured into her. Her form flickered...sometimes a little girl, sometimes a young woman, sometimes something far older.
"You lied!" she howled at Kael...or maybe at the shadows that had once been Alaric. "You said you'd come back!"
Kael's voice came out raw. "I'm here now."
He reached for her.
And the Blood Moon shattered.
The Remembrance Dance
What happened next defied reason,
The moon's fragments didn't fall...they floated, forming a slow spiral above the archway. Lena broke free from Mara and began to dance, her bare feet leaving glowing prints on the broken stones. Where she stepped, new markings appeared: not scars, not sigils, but stories.
The history of the shadow wolves, written in light.
Selene's body moved without her command, pulled into the dance by some deep muscle memory. Her marked arms wove patterns in the air, conducting the silver mist like an orchestra. With every movement, Lirya's echo grew more solid...more real.
Mara made a choked sound. "You're not... you can't be helping her!"
Lena spun, her eyes full of moonlight. "This was never help, It was always surrender."
Then the final horror:
The archway wasn't a gateway.
It was a mouth.
And it was hungry.
The Last Sacrifice
Lirya's form stabilized...no longer a child, but the young woman from Selene's visions. Her hands, now solid, clutched at Kael's arms. "You have to finish it," she begged. "Like we promised."
Kael's shadows stirred, lifting toward the archway's maw. He looked at Selene, his golden eyes full of grief and understanding.
This was why Alaric had failed.
Not from lack of courage.
From lack of trust.
Selene nodded.
Together, they stepped forward...
...just as Mara lunged with her dagger.
The blade didn't strike Lirya.
It struck Lena.
The girl gasped, her dance faltering as the knife buried itself in her chest. Not blood, but liquid moonlight poured from the wound, splashing across the archway's base.
The reaction was instantaneous.
The stone teeth clamped shut.
Lirya screamed.
And the world went white.