The ceremony was over, but the mark it left on Maria’s soul had only just begun to burn.
She stood before the sacred altar, the last embers of the Bone Circle still glowing behind her. Her blood still stained the ancient stone beneath her feet, and yet her heartbeat had gone quiet — not from calm, but from a hollowness she couldn’t name. The crown of runes rested on her head like a weight of iron.
Joseph stood on her right, Luca on her left. And in the shadows, beyond the veil of gathered wolves, stood Xavier.
His eyes locked on hers.
It was only a second. A glance.
But in that second, Maria felt it — a twisting, crawling shadow rise up from within her. Not fear. Not hatred.
Recognition.
It slithered through her like smoke from a long-dead fire, something that had once burned inside
