The cliffside ruins stood quietly beneath a bruised evening sky, the wind pulling at the tall grass and sending shivers through the cracked stones. Time had softened the jagged edges; moss climbed over fallen pillars, and wildflowers bloomed where warriors once stood guard. The ruins were now a skeleton of memory—the outline of the old den, a half-collapsed hearth, and the echo of voices long gone.
Aria hadn’t visited in years, not since the night she first tended to Xander here, both of them too young and too proud to recognize what was stirring between them. Now, so much had changed. She was Luna, “the heart of the moon,” revered by her pack. She had stood at the Moonstone Shrine, saved lives, let some go, watched Sienna leave with grace, and chosen, over and over, not to run.
But as s
