Talia POV
The marsh wind stilled.
Not gradually. Not gently.
One heartbeat, the night breathed—alive with damp earth, moving water, and moonlit reeds.
Next, everything stopped.
No ripple. No whisper.
Silence.
The kind that only comes when a powerful witch dies. The kind that leaves a signature behind. Anyone with even a trace of witch blood felt it—an absence so complete it pressed against bone and breath alike—Mira's death.
Dorian had been kneeling at Talia’s side. Now he rose slowly, drawing in the last echoes of Mira’s collapsing magic. He was still in his Lycan–wolf hybrid form, still marked by the raw edges of recent transformation—but the newness was settling, locking into place.
Something else stood there now.
Taller. Sharper. Older.
The boy was gone.
When Dorian opened
