The night after Kael's disappearance felt endless.
The forest, once alive with the hum of insects and the whisper of the wind, had fallen silent. Even the river—normally restless and chattering over stones—seemed to hold its breath. Lyria sat by the dying embers of her fire, her cloak drawn tightly around her shoulders, though the cold that gnawed at her had little to do with the night air.
Her hands wouldn't stop trembling. No matter how many times she pressed them to her knees, the phantom warmth of his touch lingered—his last words echoing through her head like a curse: "You are the light they fear."
She looked up. The moon was fractured. Its surface veined with cracks like shattered glass, faint trails of luminescent dust drifting down to earth. The night sky had never looked so wrong.
Kael had done that.
He'd torn the veil between the mortal and the cursed to keep her alive. And now he was gone—lost somewhere in that storm of darkness that had swallowed the clearing whole.
