Selene’s POV
We buried the dagger at dawn.
The earth was still cracked from where I’d driven it between myself and her—the fragment, the ghost, the version of me twisted by the Mother’s voice. I watched Kade press the soil flat with his palm, slow and deliberate.
“Will it hold?” he asked.
“It has to.”
We stood in silence for a moment, the birds cautious, the trees watching like they knew something the rest of us didn’t. I felt empty—but not hollow. Like something had been cut out, and what remained was still raw.
“She was part of me,” I whispered.
“And you’re still here,” Kade said gently.
I didn’t know whether that made it better—or worse.
Hollowfang held its breath for three days.
The border was reinforced. The wolves remained in the fortress. No new threats emerged from the wo
