The Shepherd did not advance.
He didn’t need to.
The land itself had already leaned toward him—soil humming softly beneath our feet, the air thick with the promise of rest. Not peace. Rest. The kind that came after giving up.
I felt it tug at me.
Not command.
Invitation.
I planted my feet harder.
“You don’t decide for the land,” I said. “It answered me first.”
The Shepherd inclined his head. “And it answered you when it needed courage. Now it needs quiet.”
Ronan’s breath shuddered beside me.
I felt the pull through him like a second heartbeat—steady, patient, inexorable.
Ashael’s voice sliced through the tension. “You’re lying by omission.”
The Shepherd looked almost… amused. “Am I?”
“You speak as if the vanished Luna failed,” Ashael continued. “But you never say how.”
Silenc
