139

139
Kieran's POV

I woke up choking on air, and around me it was silent. I was falling in complete darkenss, and when I woke up my body ached. I should have been dead.. Why wasnt I dead.. Valeriese killed me? Or maybe she didnt? I dont know. My head is a fog of memory.

The battlefield around us was still. Too still. The kind of silence that meant something enormous had been ripped out of the world. That something had happened and I dont know what.

I pushed myself upright, shadows twitching instinctively at my back, but they were thin.. They were fading. Why were they fading..

Bodies littered the ground in every direction. Wolves, witches, even the shade-beasts Valeriese had called. All of them were gone.

Vanished into nothing, like they’d never existed at all.

But slowly all of our allies started to sit up. Like they were coming back to life.. That cant be right..

Beside me, Rowen groaned, dragging himself upright, blood dried across his jaw and the cuts on him were healing.. Brinley stirred too beside him. Her wolf Raiyna’s presence flickering weakly in her eyes.

“What happened?” Rowen croaked out his voice raw. Maybe from screaming?

Before I could answer, a familiar scent hit my nose. Cigar smoke, pine, and a tang of grief. Lucian was suddenly there, his arms closing around all three of us. His breath shuddered, his face wet with tears.

“Thank the Goddess…” His voice cracked like stone breaking. “We thought you three were gone. We couldn’t hear your heartbeats. Oh praise the moongoddess, I dont know what I would have done had I lost you three as well.”

The hug he gave us was wrong. It was desperate. Too desperate. Something wasnt right.. His words finally clicked in my mind.

We froze. All three of us. Brinley, Rowen and I all looked at one another, panick flooding the bond. Because there was a fourth heartbeat missing.

I wrenched out of his hold, already scanning the mud, already reaching for her through the bond—

“Where’s Maevryn?”

Her name scraped through my raw throat. No one answered.

The tether between us was empty. The pieces of her soul inside me were now voids, black holes where her warmth and precence had been.

Rowen staggered to his feet, his face pale. Brinley stood up beside him, her body swayed as she clutched her ribs where she had been stabbed.
And then the ground itself glowed around us.

A soft shimmer rose out of the earth, threads of silver and gold weaving upward into the night. At first it looked like mist. Then it formed into a woman—no, not a woman. A projection. Lunar. Her body was made of light and her eyes were eternity. Her voice rolled through every stone, every broken wall, every bone.

“Maevryn has fulfilled her duty. She has fulfilled her fate. My choosen one has completed her destiny. But I will let her rise again.”

The air around us hummed with power.

From the edges of the battlefield, they appeared. Spirits of wolves, golden and immense, dozens of them padding silently from the night.

The Golden Wolves.

Their light threaded into Maeve’s broken form on the ground.

I couldn’t breathe everything around me was surreal feeling.

Rowen grabbed my arm, hard enough to bruise. “Kieran... look.”

Maevryn's body rose a few inches from the earth, shadows flaring once before the light consumed them. I smelled burning, not burning of flesh, but of power. Her golden flames, her shadows, her elemental fury.. every piece of magic she’d carried.. peeled away like a second skin.

“No—” My chest tore open. “Don’t take it from her!”

The wolves did not listen. They stripped her bare. Until all that was left was small. Fragile. Pure.

The light around her frail body faded.

And where Maeve had been, a small white wolf lay curled in the dirt.

Not golden. No longer covered in darkness from the shadows. Just white.

Her fur was soft snow under moonlight. Her eyes fluttered open, emerald green, but dimmer, hollow, like a lantern with no fire inside.

My knees buckled and I fell to the ground. I crawled to her, hands shaking. My heart beat eratic in my chest.

“Maeve,” I whispered.

She flinched at my voice. When I reached out, she tilted her head, recognition flickered in her eyes, then guttered out.

Shifting with a shimmer, her wolf dissolved. Her human form lay where the wolf had been, fully clothed,her once strawberry blonde hair was now as pale as frost. She blinked at us, dazed, confused.

“What… happened?” she murmured. Her voice was so small. Then her lashes lowered, and she fell into a deep sleep before any of us could answer.

Brinley’s hand flew to her mouth. Rowen made a broken sound and staggered back.

I pressed my forehead to her shoulder, gripping her hand as if it would tether me. My shadows didn’t stir. They were gone. Empty, like her.

“I promised I’d bring you back,” I whispered. My voice cracked. “And we did. But not like this.”

Rowen’s roar split the night. He turned to the sky, his fists clenched. “What have you done!” he screamed at the projection of the Goddess.

The lunar woman’s voice swept across the courtyard, cool and unyielding.

“She chose to save your lives. She chose to come back to you. But there was a price. Her price was power. She is no longer a golden wolf, or a witch. She made her choice. She would not surrender her memories. She did not want to forget you.”

Brinley choked. “She remembers?”

“Yes,” the Goddess whispered. “She remembers everything. The love. The pain. The blood. All of it. But she will never again wield what she once carried. Memory, time, power. Each is a thread. One must be given to weave the rest. She gave up her power, for you.”

Her words fell heavy, branding us all.

“You had better make her choice the right one. You all better make sure my child doesnt suffer again. Im giving you all one last chance.”

The projection faded. The spirits dispersed. Only the broken battlefield remained.. and the girl of our dreams in my arms.

Not the Golden Wolf. Not the weapon they wanted to create. Not the girl from the prophecy.

Just Maeve. Our Maevryn.

And goddess above.. I cried.