Echoes in the Blood
They returned to Moon Blood territory under a sky still tinged with red, though the worst of the Blood Moon had passed. The war had ended, for now. But peace was a fragile illusion. Everyone knew it.
Especially Raine.
Wrapped in Kael’s cloak, she rode in silence on horseback, her arms resting across her lap where her child still grew. Every heartbeat she felt now belonged to someone else. There was no golden tether. No sacred link between mother and unborn daughter. Only a ghost of what had been, and a sharp ache where love used to live in light.
Kael rode beside her, watching her more than the road ahead. He hadn’t let go of her once—not after she collapsed in the Pool chamber, not during the ride up from Solas, not even while she slept. There was guilt in his sile
