A Shard That Lingers
Diana’s POV
The sky above the ruined church was painfully blue.
It felt wrong, too calm, too soft, too untouched by what had just happened beneath the earth. I sat in the grass, dirt on my fingernails, my body trembling from the aftershock of the spell. My breath came in short uneven bursts.
Not from fear.
From release.
For the first time since the curse had clung to me like shadowed silk, I felt something loosen.
A weight… lifted.
Cameron sat beside me, his hand pressed gently against my back, grounding me.
“We broke it,” I whispered, though my voice shook with uncertainty. “Didn’t we?”
He didn’t answer right away.
His silver eyes scanned the horizon, then the rubble, then finally my face.
“We severed the tether,” he said. “The crypt is gone. The book was
