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138
Maevryn's POV

"Oh my child, what have you done."

Her voice is warmth and gravity, and it breaks something in me. I sit up, or what passes for sitting here. My body isn’t my body. I’m lighter than air, and yet gold beams off me like I’m bleeding sunlight instead of blood.
I look around. There’s no battlefield insight, no mud, no bodies. Only endless sky and a plain of silver light, rippling like water. Above me the moon hangs swollen and impossibly close, radiant with a heartbeat I can almost hear.

She kneels before me. Selene. The Moon herself. Her hands are gentle when they brush hair from my face, though the touch sears like fire and cools like rain all at once. Her eyes are galaxies. Her presence makes me want to bow and rage and weep all at once.

A whimper leaves me before I can stop it.

“Please.. please keep them alive. I knew the light would kill me but I was too late. She killed them. Valeriese killed them. I just wanted to protect them” My chest wracks. The sobs claw out of me like they’ve been waiting years. “Please don’t let my mates die for me.”

Selene’s hand lingers at my temple. “Child of my blood, my power, my love,” she murmurs. “This was the end. This was always the end of the story you walked. The prophecies were tangled, and you were forced to carry more than one. The golden wolves should never have taken the world in this way. The darkness was never meant to win.”

Her voice sharpens, though sorrow edges it.

“But power untempered always draws shadow. And you, Maevryn… you held more power than any mortal child should. It made you a beacon. It made corruption easy. And for that, I am sorry.”

I choke. “So I was doomed? From the start?”

“Not doomed,” Selene says softly. “Destined. And destiny is heavier than doom. Doom is a chain. Destiny is a choice wrapped in consequence.”

I stare at her, fists clenched. “There were two prophecies. Mine. The Golden Wolf. And the mirror with Keiran and Rowen.. Which was I supposed to be?”

Her gaze pierces me. “One. Only one. The Mirror Prophecy was not meant to touch you. It was written for another... But because you were both wolf and witch, the lines tangled. Seers glimpsed you from different angles and thought you were two. You carried both crowns because the world feared choosing which one you truly were.”

“So which?” My voice cracks. “Death or dawn?”

“Both,” Selene says, her voice sad and radiant. “Always both. Balance was your path. That is why the bond tied to three souls, not one. Why your magic bent not to a single element but to all.”

My breath shudders. “Kieran. Rowen. Brinley. Why them? Why all of them?”

Selene’s smile is small, almost maternal. “Because one wolf could not bear you. One mate could not anchor the storm in your blood. Three were chosen, woven with you from before birth. Onyx, Raiyna, Axel. Three wolves, three humans, three hearts, one tether. They are not an accident. They are the other part of your heart, your soul.”

My throat burns. “And now they’re dead. My circle is broken.”

Selene tilts my chin up. “No, child. Death is not final in this place. Not when light still bleeds through you. What you do next will decide whether they rise, or whether you fade with them.”

Her name burns on my tongue. “Valeriese. She said she was the last golden wolf. She said she was me.”

“She was truth and lie,” Selene says, her tone grim now. “Valeriese was the last before you. Betrayed, hunted, slaughtered with her kin. Her soul refused to rest. She became shadow—a wound in the world. When you were born, that wound reached for you. For your future pain. For your future rage. The door was opened to your soul when Nythera's coven marked you, as apart of a prophecy. That was the moment she found you as an anchor. She knew you would be the storm needed to finish her revenge.When you killed Deliliah it only sealed your fate with her."

I flinch. “So it’s my fault.”

“It was never your fault,” Selene whispers, pressing her palm to my heart. “It was grief and anger.. Grief of everything you had gone through as a child at the hands of others and your mother.. The grief of everything youd never have.. And anger can make shields, too, to protect you from future harm.”

Tears spill hot down my face. “I used everything. Earth. Fire. Shadow. Blood. I broke myself open. And still it wasn’t enough to save them”

“You misunderstood your gift,” Selene says. “You thought it was power alone. But it was always choice. You were born with all elements, all paths. You were the storm that could destroy. But you were also the calm that could heal. Both lived in you. That was your terror, and your miracle.”

I swallow. “And now?”

“Now,” Selene says, “you decide what remains. Whether light or shadow writes the final page.”

Her words stir another ache. “Lucian. My dad. He never—he never loved me right.”
Selene’s expression softens. “He feared failing you. And so, he did. He will carry that shame longer than you carry scars. But know this: he never stopped trying, even in silence. His love was crooked, but it was love.”

I shake my head, desperate. “Tell me what to do. Please. Tell me how to fix this.”

Selene’s hands frame my face again. Her eyes blaze with silver fire.

“You cannot fix. You can only finish this. You will break the cycle by becoming what Valeriese could not. She clung to vengeance and let it hollow her. You must choose love, even when it burns. That is how the shadow dies. That is how balance is restored.”

Her words sink like arrows. Love. Even when it burns.

“Then I’ll die,” I whisper. “Won’t I?”

“Yes,” Selene says simply. “You were never meant to walk past this battle. But death is not always an ending. Sometimes it is dawn rising, righting every wrong...”

She leans close, her lips almost to my ear. “Your mates will live. Because you gave them all of you. You sacrificed yourself for them. And I respect that. You will be remembered as the storm that passed—and the sun that rose after.”

I crumble against her, sobbing until my gold-shadow skin flickers. Selene holds me. And when she releases me, her words brand themselves into me like prophecy made flesh:

“You are not just weapon. You are not a curse. You are my child. My Golden Flame, My inner wolf. My inner witch. My balance. when you rise one last time, the world will finally see what it means. ”

"Can I be with them in this lifetime? Please.. please.. I love them.."

"Child, with me doing that, there will come a price are you willing to pay that price?"

"For them? I'd do anything.. If it meant I could see them again"

"Then lets hope the world is ready for you once more."