Chapter 21
The storm hadn’t reached the sanctuary yet.
But the cold had.
Elira stood at the edge of the Moonfire Grove, the trees stripped bare, frost edging the tips of the sacred blossoms.
In her hand, the obsidian dagger pulsed faintly like a heartbeat.
Kael stepped behind her, his voice low.
“The Queen’s reach is spreading.”
“Soon, even this place won’t remember its name.”
Elira didn’t answer.
She gripped the dagger tighter.
Because lately… her own name felt like it was slipping again.
The Obsidian Dagger’s True Nature
They brought the dagger to the Moonfire Seers that afternoon.
Old women and wolf-blooded scribes who remembered magic before it had rules.
One of them, Mother Ysenna, ran her hand over the black blade and whispered:
“This dagger remembers.”
“It stores pie
