The moment Elira crossed back through the Rift, the world shifted around her.
The forest—so familiar, so known—now pulsed with a strange and haunting rhythm, as if the trees themselves remembered something ancient she did not. Her boots sank into moss that shimmered faintly under the moonlight, each footfall echoing with unnatural resonance.
Theron emerged beside her, silent and still. The faint marks trailing his collarbone from the visions beyond the Rift hadn't faded; they glowed softly, delicate constellations etched in silver and shadow.
Neither of them spoke.
They didn't have to.
What they had seen in the other realm—what had seen them—was still settling into their bones.
---
Selene's arms wrapped around Elira, fierce and trembling. "You're here. You're whole."
Elira didn't respond right away. She lifted her head slowly, meeting her mother's gaze. "We brought something back," she whispered.
Kael's hand hovered near his blade. "What does that mean?"
Theron turned, eyes still distant. "The Rift didn't just open to us… it remembered us. And now it's awake."
The forest around them exhaled, every leaf swaying in a breeze none of them felt.
Naeria stepped forward, her expression unreadable. "Then the stars will no longer wait."
---
Resonance
Back at camp, silence spread like mist.
The fire crackled low. The twins sat beside it, eyes unfocused, listening to something no one else could hear. Even Selene—so tuned to the rhythms of her children—felt excluded from the frequency that now bound them.
Naeria examined them with growing tension. "The rift energy is embedded in their aura," she murmured, brushing her fingers through the glow. "It's not residue… it's a merging."
Elira flinched as a pulse moved through her chest, like a second heartbeat.
"It's singing," she said softly. "Like… like stars. Like memories waking up."
Theron leaned forward, his voice low and strange. "They gave us names. Not ours, but titles."
Naeria's head snapped up. "What titles?"
Elira closed her eyes.
"Gatekeeper," she whispered.
Theron's lips parted in a breathless echo. "And Balancer."
---
The Moon's Warning
Later that night, Selene climbed the high ridge above camp alone.
She needed space. Air. Time.
What had she done?
Her children were no longer just hers. No longer simply wolves or hybrids or Starborn-blooded anomalies. The realm beyond the Rift had claimed them, whispered destinies older than the moon itself into their veins.
And now?
They shone.
Not just magically—but cosmically.
When Kael joined her on the ridge, he didn't speak. Just stood beside her, watching the twins' tent from a distance. Elira's aura glimmered like starlight caught in water. Theron's shadow magic rippled even when he slept.
"They're becoming something else," Selene said quietly.
Kael nodded. "Or becoming what they were always meant to be."
Selene turned toward him. "How do I protect them from that?"
He didn't answer.
Because they both knew the truth.
She couldn't.
---
Starlight Dreams
That night, Elira dreamed.
She stood in the temple of glass again—only now it was filled with reflections of herself. Some walked ahead, leading. Others stood still, waiting. A few looked back, hands raised in warning.
But one… one bled from the eyes and mouth, a void tearing open in her chest.
> "Choose wisely," a voice said. "Or you will lose everything."
Elira woke with tears on her cheeks and her mark burning under her skin.
In the cot beside her, Theron stirred.
"I saw the Fissure," he muttered. "It's opening soon."
She turned toward him. "Then we don't have much time."
The Starlit Map
By dawn, Naeria had constructed a star-map using the runes left in Theron's skin. She hovered over him, muttering ancient tongue under her breath as the others watched.
"These aren't just coordinates," she said. "They're celestial events. Alignments. This path... it's a ritual."
"A ritual for what?" Rowan asked, arms crossed.
Naeria stepped back. "To open the true Starborn Gate."
Elira paled. "Then that vision—it wasn't the end. It was a beginning."
Kael's voice darkened. "How many will come through when the Gate opens?"
Naeria didn't answer.
Because she didn't know.
And that was the most terrifying part.
A Test of Loyalty
That afternoon, Rowan took Theron into the woods.
"You're too quiet," he muttered, throwing a blade at a tree trunk. "Too calm. You're either hiding something or about to explode."
Theron stared at the blade, then picked it up.
"I'm not afraid," he said.
"You should be."
Theron turned the weapon in his hand. "Afraid of what? The Gate? The stars? Myself?"
Rowan walked toward him slowly. "Afraid of what you'll do when you're not in control."
Theron's grip tightened.
"I won't lose control."
Rowan didn't respond. Just turned, disappearing into the woods.
Theron stood alone for a long time before returning to camp.
A Sky Divided
Three nights later, the first sign came.
The moon turned pale gold. Not in full, but in a perfect sliver down its right side—a glow not cast by sunlight but by something else.
Elira woke in the middle of the night, drawn to the glow. She stepped out of the tent and found Naeria already waiting in the clearing, her eyes sky-bound.
"It's begun," she said simply.
"The Gate?"
"No. The divergence. The moment when your path begins to split."
Elira's hands trembled.
"Can I change it?"
Naeria turned to her.
"Only if you're willing to walk through the dark first."
Selene's Choice
Selene pulled Elira aside the next morning.
"I want to come with you."
Elira blinked. "What?"
"To the Fissure. To the Gate. Wherever this leads."
Elira's eyes burned. "Mother…"
"I know it's not my place. Not anymore. But I need to be there when the stars ask more than they should."
Elira took her mother's hands, steady and firm.
"I don't know if you'll be able to follow where we go."
"Then let me follow as far as I can."
Through Starlight and Shadow
On the seventh night, they reached the Starlit Fissure.
It wasn't a canyon, as the name implied.
It was a tear—a long crack in the sky itself, floating above a stone altar carved with twin wolves facing opposite directions.
The Gate hadn't opened yet.
But it was close.
The air hummed.
The ground shimmered.
And above them, the moon flickered.
Elira and Theron stepped forward. Their marks blazed.
Naeria murmured ancient verses, Rowan unsheathed his blade, and Selene tightened her grip on Kael's hand.
Then, as the stars aligned, the Gate ignited.
Silver light spiraled upward in twin beams—one warm and golden, the other dark and cool.
They twisted together, forming an arch that pulsed with the heartbeat of the universe.
Theron turned to Elira.
"Are you ready?"
She took a breath, eyes shimmering with everything they had gained—and everything they might lose.
"Yes."
And together, bound by blood and fate, they stepped through.
---