The battlefield remained eerily still in the aftermath of Gideon’s fall. The Blood Moon’s suffocating red glow had begun to wane, casting shifting shadows across the scorched ground where he had once stood. For a long moment, nothing moved, no howl of victory, no cry of mourning. Only the ragged breathing of the surviving wolves and the faint crackle of dying embers remained.
Then, from the smoldering remains, a broken cough rattled the silence.
Gideon.
Layla turned, her heart a storm of emotions as she watched her father struggle to rise. His once-imposing form was a shell of its former power. His robes, singed and tattered, barely clung to his trembling frame. The darkness that had once pulsed beneath his skin had dimmed, his aura reduced to little more than a dying ember. He was mort
