Think, Savannah. What else can the guardian do?
The memories I'd seen during the mind trial—my mother's darkness emerging, Ranulf explaining what it meant.
"The darkness isn't evil," he'd said. "It's ancient. Hungry, yes, but not malicious. It was created to hunt the void-born, to maintain balance."
Hungry. The Wolf That Eats the Moon.
Maybe I didn't need to seal the sphere. Maybe I needed to consume it.
I changed tactics, drawing my shadow-substance back into a more concentrated form. Instead of spreading myself thin trying to cover the sphere, I opened myself around it, creating a void—a mouth of sorts, large enough to engulf the entire sphere.
The hunger rose within me, ancient and powerful. Not malicious, as Ranulf had said, but purposeful. This was what the guardian was meant to
