The night smelled wrong.
Luna knew it the moment she stepped out of the den.
Not wrong like blood or rot.
Wrong like perfume in a graveyard.
Sweet.
Too sweet.
Covering something sour.
She paused at the threshold, fingers brushing the stone as if to ask it.
The wall hummed, uneasy.
Air twitched against her skin.
Fire, banked in the courtyard braziers, hissed faintly as if offended.
Water, in the creek behind the den, carried a tremor in its usual song.
Earth thrummed beneath her bare feet, a low, warning growl.
Someone had slipped into Moonshadow's night and tried to make it their own.
*Do you feel that?* she sent along the bond.
Orion's answer came at once, rough with tension.
*Yes. Wake Rhea. Quietly. I will check the east wall.*
*No,* she replied, already moving. *We go together.*
There was no time to argue.
He simply accepted, a flicker of grim agreement and protective resistance sliding through their link.
The courtyard was nearly empty.
Most wolves slept.
A few night guards stood on the walls, silhouettes against the star-pricked sky.
Their stances were too rigid.
Too still.
Luna's stomach clenched.
Rhea stepped out from the shadows beside the Moonstone pillar as if pulled by the same wrongness.
"Smell that?" she muttered.
"Yes," Luna said.
Rhea's expression hardened.
"Like jasmine on a corpse," she said. "Selene always did like to cover her rot with flowers."
Luna's heart stuttered.
They had not spoken Selene's name aloud much, lately.
Not because she was forgotten.
Because her shadow had drifted to the edges of things—soft as rumor, vague as old fear.
But tonight, the scent in the air was not memory.
It was intrusion.
Luna narrowed her eyes, inhaling again.
Under the cloying sweetness, she caught it: the sharp, metallic tang of twisted magic.
Not Varric's warping.
Not rogue curses.
This was something older.
Personal.
Moonlight seemed... wrong along the inner walls.
Too bright in some places, too dim in others, like a painting with its light-source off.
"Selene is dead," Luna said quietly, more to herself than to Rhea.
Rhea's jaw flexed.
"Bodies die," she said. "Spite lingers."
A shout split the air from the eastern wall.
Then another, cut off sharp.
Orion's voice, snarled, "To arms!" and then, through the bond, a flash of shock and fury.
*Luna—* he started.
She was already moving, Fire licking at her heels, Air pushing at her back.
The world narrowed to the path between her and that wrongness.
The eastern wall walk came into view in a rush of stone and shadow.
Wolves stood there, but their stances—
Luna's gut twisted.
They were lined along the wall like statues, eyes open and silvered, faces slack.
Hands on spears.
Bodies held upright not by will, but by something else.
Orion stood among them, jaw clenched, eyes blazing human-gold.
A radius of cleared space surrounded him, as if he had shoved back an invisible tide.
He met Luna's gaze as she skidded to a stop on the steps.
"She has them," he grated. "Some kind of... glamour. Like before. But stronger. I felt it try to crawl into me through the Alpha bond. It did not take."
Luna's blood ran cold.
Of course.
Selene had always been a creature of charm and illusion.
Her cruelty had not been claws and fangs.
It had been words.
Smiles.
Gazes that slipped under skin and rewrote realities.
Death, it seemed, had not dulled that talent.
It had sharpened it into something more monstrous.
A laugh drifted down from the shadows near the far tower.
Honeyed.
Cruel.
Chillingly familiar.
"Oh, my dear," a voice cooed. "You always underestimated me. Both of you."
Luna turned toward the sound.
A figure stepped into the moonlight.
For a瞬, Luna's mind rejected what she saw.
Selene.
Not the broken, bleeding Selene of their last battle.
Not the corpse dragged out of the den.
This Selene wore her old face.
Perfect.
Unlined.
Golden hair spilling over her shoulders in gleaming waves.
White dress.
Bare feet.
Eyes—
Luna's breath hitched.
Selene's eyes, once green as broken glass, were now silver.
Bright.
Hollow.
No pupils.
No warmth.
Moonlight burned in them like a reflection from a blade.
Luna's wolf snarled deep.
"This is not possible," Rhea whispered behind her.
"Is anything impossible, anymore?" Rebel muttered, creeping up beside them, eyes wide.
Selene smiled.
It was exactly the same as Luna remembered.
Sweet.
Condescending.
Rotten at the core.
"The Moon has always been generous with second chances," Selene said. "Why should I be denied what She trots out so freely for the runt?"
Her voice carried that same subtle lilt that had once made even elders lean in.
Now it crawled over Luna's skin like spiders.
"You are dead," Luna said evenly. "I watched you fall. I watched your blood soak the stone."
Selene wrinkled her nose.
"Such ugly words," she said. "Dead. Fallen. Blood. You really have lost your manners, Luna. The correct term is... invited back."
Luna's grip on the parapet tightened.
"You think the Goddess did this," she said.
Selene laughed, bright and sharp.
"Oh, no," she said. "She would not dirty Her hands. She prefers Her puppets to be made of fresh wood and guilt. No. I... found my own way. Shadows have power, you know. Enough resentment in one place and even the simplest soul can swim back up through the cracks."
Air went still around them.
Stone thrummed harder.
The pack, frozen along the wall, breathed in eerie unison.
"What do you want?" Orion demanded, voice low. "You cannot hope to take Moonshadow with a handful of enthralled guards and a... ghostly tantrum."
Selene's gaze slid to him.
Once, it had been full of calculated adoration.
Now, it was flat.
Assessing.
"You," she said coolly, "were always only interesting as a rung on the ladder. You stepped off that ladder the day you bared your throat to little Luna here. I did not come for you."
Her eyes snapped back to Luna.
They burned.
"You," she said. "I came for you."
Luna's spine straightened.
"Revenge?" she asked. "After all this time?"
Selene's lips thinned.
"Do not be simple," she said. "Revenge is for wolves who think they have time. I do not. The place I clawed my way out of is... impatient. It wants something. It wants *in.* And it sees you as the... door."
The word hung heavy.
Wrong.
A chill skittered down Luna's spine.
"Shadow," she breathed.
The things she had glimpsed at the edge of her visions.
The cold hollows between stars.
The hunger inside curses.
She had thought Selene's spirit adrift.
Angry.
Alone.
She had not considered that something older had found her in that dark and offered her a hand.
*Selene's Shadow,* the Goddess murmured in Luna's mind, tone grim. *I warned you: spite lingers. The place between My light and the void is never empty. She found the cracks left by your pack's sins. She slid through.*
"And you took the offer," Luna said softly, to Selene. "You let something else ride you back to this world."
Selene's smile froze.
"A queen does not ride," she said. "She directs. I am no one's puppet."
Luna shook her head.
"You always were," she said. "First to the pack's praise. Then to your own vanity. Now to whatever whispered in your ear when you died."
Silver flashed dangerously in Selene's eyes.
"You think you are free?" she hissed. "You think this little act of yours—this 'Luna without chains' farce—makes you untouchable? You are more bound than any of us. To the Moon. To the elements. To that mutt at your side. You call it choice. I call it *collar.*"
Orion snarled low.
Luna felt a flicker of hurt.
Not because Selene was right.
Because the words pressed against old, tender spots.
Selene saw it.
Pounced.
"Look at you," she cooed. "So regal. So *divine.* Wolves are falling over themselves to kiss your paws. Do you even know who you are without their worship? Without Her approval? Without his eyes on you like you hung the stars?"
Fire licked up Luna's spine.
Old insecurity.
New truth.
She breathed.
Let Air clear the sting.
"Once," she said, "your words would have gutted me. I would have torn myself apart trying to prove I was not what you said. Now..." She shrugged, almost tired. "Now I see you for what you are: a woman so frightened of being ordinary that you would rather be a monster."
Selene's composure cracked.
For a瞬, her face twisted.
Ugly.
Raw.
"There it is," she spat. "The sanctimonious pity. I always hated that about you, Luna. Even when you were on your knees in the mud, there was this... *spark* in your eyes. As if you were above us. As if you knew something we did not."
"I knew I was more than what you said I was," Luna replied. "That was all. It terrified you."
Selene's smile went knife-thin.
"You are right about one thing," she said. "I am not here for revenge alone. That would be a waste of an excellent second life. I am here to finish what I started the day I told this pack it would never accept you."
She lifted her hands.
The enthralled wolves along the wall straightened, eyes flaring brighter.
Their mouths opened as one.
Silver mist spilled out.
Thin at first.
Then thicker.
It coiled like smoke.
But it did not rise.
It sank.
Down the wall.
Into the courtyard.
Through cracks in stone.
Under doors.
Luna's heart lurched.
"What are you doing?" Orion growled, stepping forward.
Selene's laughter rang, bright and terrible.
"What I do best," she said. "Whispering. Filling empty spaces. Turning hearts. I have no interest in fighting your precious pack claw to claw. Why should I break my nails? I will hollow them out from the inside."
She tilted her head back.
Spoke—not to Luna.
To the thing behind her eyes.
"Drink," she crooned.
The silver mist pulsed.
Luna felt it brush against her senses.
Cold.
Hungry.
It reached for sleeping wolves below.
For pups.
For elders.
For every crack in every heart.
The ward-stones hummed in protest.
Earth strained.
Water recoiled.
Air thickened.
Fire flickered uncertainly.
Whatever rode Selene was pressing against the very weave of Moonshadow.
Luna's wolf bared its teeth.
*No.*
She stepped forward.
Moonlight poured off her skin in a faint, steady glow.
"Selene," she called, voice suddenly quiet in the face of all that wrongness. "Look at me."
The former queen turned, smug.
"You cannot stop it," she purred. "Not without sacrificing—well. You will see."
Luna ignored the taunt.
She reached—not outward.
Inward.
Through the new, balanced center she had forged in the Trial.
Water.
Fire.
Earth.
Air.
They answered.
Not in chaotic surges.
In steady, ready pulses.
She sent a thought to Orion.
*Hold the line. Do not attack the enthralled. They are not the enemy. Keep anyone who wakes back.*
He bristled.
*And you?*
She smiled without humor.
*I have a conversation to finish.*
She stepped into the path of the descending silver, raising one hand.
Cold slapped her palm.
It stung.
It tried to slide around her, under her.
She held.
"Shadow," she said, not to Selene now. "I know you hear me."
The mist shivered.
The air tasted of iron.
"You came up through her," Luna went on. "Through the cracks this pack left. Through the fear she carried. Through the pain I did not have time to heal. You think you can drink what is mine."
Her voice deepened.
Not with divine echo.
With conviction.
"You cannot have them," she said. "Not while I stand. Not while I breathe. Not while a single stone in this place will lift to meet my hand."
Selene's laughter sharpened.
"You think you can bargain with it?" she scoffed. "It does not bargain. It devours."
Luna met her gaze.
"For once," she said, "we agree on something. So I will not bargain."
She lowered her hand.
Stepped *into* the silver.
Orion's roar tore from his throat.
"Luna!"
Air ripped at her.
Cold slammed into her skin.
The mist surged, seizing the opportunity, trying to pour into her mouth, her nose, her eyes.
She opened herself.
Not in surrender.
In *choice.*
*If something must be hollowed,* she thought, fiercely, to the Shadow, *let it be me. Not them. Take your chance. See if you can bear what you find here.*
It rushed.
For a瞬, she could not see.
Hear.
Breathe.
Dark.
Not absence-of-light.
Presence.
Heavy.
Thick.
Full of whispers.
Hate.
Loneliness.
Hungry, hungry, hungry—
It groped for footholds in her.
Old wounds.
Old fears.
You are too small.
You are too weak.
You are unlovable.
You are a fraud.
Luna did not deny them.
She had sat with them only hours before.
"Those chains are broken," she told the dark inside her. "You are late."
The Shadow recoiled.
It surged again, seeking other cracks.
Debt.
Guilt.
Pride.
You enjoy this power.
You like being needed.
You are no better than she is.
Luna's mouth twisted.
"Yes," she said simply. "I enjoy helping. I enjoy being seen. I am not above that. But I know the line. She never did. You picked the wrong host."
She flung her mind—and the light in her bones—wide.
Not to fight Shadow on its terms.
To *flood* the space it tried to claim.
Water rose in her, not as drowning, but as depth.
It filled hollows the Shadow tried to nest in.
Fire burned, not as rage, but as courage, searing away lies.
Earth held, unshaken, under the dark's assault.
Air moved, sweeping stale bitterness out, bringing fresh perspective in.
The Shadow screamed.
Not aloud.
Inside.
It had expected a broken vessel.
A cracked bank to burst.
It had not expected a wolf who had faced her own worst thoughts and refused to flinch.
Outside, to Orion and Rhea and the stunned guards, Luna disappeared into a column of writhing silver-black.
Her silhouette flickered within it, sometimes visible, sometimes gone.
Orion's claws dug into the stone.
His wolf raged inside him.
Every instinct screamed at him to *go.*
To tear.
To drag her out.
The bond burned.
He felt the cold claw at her mind.
Felt her old wounds flare.
Felt—then, to his astonishment—her steady refusal.
Not resistance, rigid and brittle.
Refusal, fluid and unyielding.
Like a river turning a boulder aside.
"She is not fighting it the way I would," he rasped.
"Good," Rhea snapped, eyes locked on the maelstrom. "You hit things. She... *is* things."
Selene watched, expression twisting now with something new.
Uncertainty.
This was not how it had gone in her head.
The Shadow had promised easy work.
Luna, for all her power, was still mortal.
Still marked by hurt.
Shadow fed on hurt.
It should have been quick.
Contain her.
Then, through her, the pack.
Then the world.
"Stop it," Selene hissed, voice edged with panic. "Take her!"
The dark writhed.
It did not answer her.
Luna reached deeper.
To the place the Moonstone disc had lodged.
To the Trial's balance.
She flung the doors open.
Moonlight, cool and implacable, surged up her spine.
Not as a separate force.
As *hers,* now.
She was not the Moon.
She was its chosen channel.
That light poured into the Shadow like a river into a cave.
It hissed.
Seethed.
Tried to twist it.
Could not.
Light and dark were not enemies here.
They revealed each other.
In that clarity, Luna saw Selene.
Not the composed specter on the wall.
The Selene beneath.
A girl once, in a different den.
Pretty.
Praised.
Terrified of fading.
She had believed her worth lay only in others' eyes.
She had built herself like a reflection in still water—perfect, fragile, easily shattered by the slightest ripple.
She had seen Luna, with her bruised knees and stubborn gaze, and felt something awful:
Threat.
Envy.
Fear that if a runt could be seen, maybe beauty was not the only currency.
Maybe she was not enough.
She had built her whole life to outrun that feeling.
Dressed it in better language.
Pack honor.
Alpha pride.
Tradition.
Underneath, it was always the same smallness.
Luna's heart ached.
Not with pity that excused.
With compassion that understood the shape of the wound without absolving the harm.
"You did not have to choose this," she told that buried Selene, there in the shared dark. "You did not have to come back as a mouth for hunger. You could have let go."
Selene's younger self snarled in memory.
"I would rather be feared than forgotten," she spat.
"There was a third choice," Luna said softly. "You never looked for it."
The Shadow recoiled from the warmth in her.
It had expected rage.
Hate.
Revulsion.
Those, it could twist.
Use.
It did not know what to do with grief for an enemy.
With love that refused to yield ground, even to darkness.
Outside, Selene jerked.
Her perfect face wavered.
For a瞬, it flickered between two states.
Radiant queen.
Gaunt, corpse-pale woman with blood at her mouth, eyes wild.
"Stop looking at me like that!" she shrieked, voice cracking. "Stop *feeling!*"
In the column of silver, Luna stood taller.
The dark thinned around her.
Her silhouette grew clearer.
She lifted her head.
Her eyes opened.
They burned not just with Moonlight now.
With all four elements.
Water's depth.
Fire's heat.
Earth's steadiness.
Air's clarity.
Shadow, pressed between those currents and the unyielding core of her self-acceptance, began to tear.
You think you are stronger than Me, it hissed, last-ditch desperate.
"I am not stronger than you," Luna said calmly. "I am stronger than the lies you use."
She reached.
Not to rip the Shadow apart.
To *untangle* it from Selene.
That was the difference.
Selene had let it in.
Selene had chosen.
Selene deserved the consequences.
But she did not deserve to be dragged as a passenger in someone else's endless hunger.
Luna's hand—more concept than flesh in this inner plane—gripped the knot where Shadow and Selene's soul twisted.
"Out," she snarled.
She pulled.
It hurt.
Her.
Selene.
The Shadow.
It was like wrenching embedded thorns from raw flesh.
The dark screamed.
It tried to cling.
To root deeper.
To rip pieces of Selene on its way out.
Luna called on Earth.
*Hold.*
Called on Water.
*Wash.*
On Fire.
*Burn what cannot stay.*
On Air.
*Carry what must go.*
The knot gave.
With a sound like stone cracking under too much weight, Shadow tore free.
It recoiled, a mass of seething, silver-black hatred.
Luna did not try to purify it.
That was beyond her.
She did the one thing it had never expected.
She *named* it.
"You are hunger," she said. "Not destiny. Not god. Not inevitability. You are absence wrapped in spite. You do not get to decide what fills the spaces you find."
The dark writhed.
Shrank.
Without Selene's pain and the pack's unhealed guilt to anchor it, it had no easy purchase here.
Moonlight surged.
Not hers.
The Goddess'.
*Enough,* the Moon said, voice like a bell. *Back to your cracks. You are not welcome in My den.*
Light and dark met.
There was no explosion.
No grand battle.
Only a quiet, absolute *No.*
The Shadow tore away.
Slipped through the world like a stain.
Far away, where other wounds in other packs still festered, it would find other nooks.
Other hearts.
That was a fight for another day.
For now, in Moonshadow, it left.
Luna gasped.
The silver column imploded.
She staggered, dropping to one knee on the wall walk, bracing herself with one hand.
Her skin was slick with cold sweat.
Her limbs shook.
But she was there.
Present.
Whole.
Air rushed back.
Sounds crashed in.
Orion was beside her in an instant, hands gripping her shoulders, eyes frantic.
"Luna," he choked. "Luna—"
She looked up.
Met his gaze.
Smiled, small, exhausted.
"I am here," she rasped.
Relief flooded the bond so forcefully she swayed.
Rhea let out a breath so harsh it was almost a sob.
Rebel scrubbed a hand over his face, muttering, "Well, that was awful."
Along the wall, the enthralled wolves collapsed, slumping against the parapet, eyes closing.
Some groaned.
Some whimpered.
All breathed.
The silver in their irises faded.
Luna turned.
Selene.
Without the Shadow propping her up, without the stolen power keeping her form, she was...
Small.
Not the impossible, perfect queen.
A thin, pale woman in a tattered white dress, hair lank, skin sallow.
Blood trickled from the corners of her eyes where silver had burned its way out.
She swayed.
Looked at her hands as if seeing them for the first time.
"What did you do?" she whispered, voice shredded.
"I pulled it out," Luna said softly. "What you invited in."
Selene laughed, a bitter, broken sound.
"You think that makes you merciful?" she said. "Without it, I—"
She staggered, clutching at the wall.
Her gaze, freed from the Shadow's cold focus, flicked wildly from Luna to Orion to the sleeping pack below.
Fear flooded it.
Real this time.
Naked.
"I do not want to go back," she said hoarsely. "You do not understand. It is... *empty* there. And full. And—"
Her words choked off.
Luna took a step closer.
Selene flinched.
Even now, she recoiled from Luna's approach like a cat from flame.
"You had a chance," Luna said quietly. "When you died. When you stood at the edge. You could have fallen into the dark and let it dissolve you. You chose to come back. To hurt more. To be used. I cannot un-choose for you."
Selene's eyes filled with something Luna had never expected to see there.
Not hatred.
Not contempt.
Desperation.
"Help me," Selene whispered. "You help everyone now, do you not? Rogues. Packs. Strays. Beasts. Help *me.*"
Once, Luna would have.
Once, that plea, in that voice—used to issuing commands instead of begging—would have cracked her open.
Now, she heard all the things beneath it.
Not remorse.
Not sorrow for what she had done.
Only panic at what awaited her without power.
"You are not sorry," Luna said, not unkindly. "You are afraid. There is a difference."
"I can be sorry," Selene said quickly. "I can—whatever you want. I will say it. Just—do not let it take me. Do not let Her—"
She cut herself off, shuddering.
Luna's chest ached.
For the girl once.
Not for this woman.
"You wanted to be feared more than forgotten," Luna said softly. "You got your wish. There is a price."
Selene's composure shattered.
She dropped to her knees.
Clawed at the stone.
At Luna's cloak.
"You owe me," she hissed. "You owe me this. I made you. Without me, you would still be scrubbing pots. I showed you what you were. You rose on the ashes of what I burned."
Luna did not pull back from her grip.
She looked down at her, eyes clear.
"You are not my maker," she said. "You are my mirror. You showed me what I never wanted to become. For that, I am... oddly grateful. But gratitude is not obedience. And it is not salvation."
She gently pried Selene's fingers from her cloak.
Selene snarled.
"There it is," she spat. "The goddess. The judge. You are no better than the rest. You preach freedom. Choice. But when it comes to me—"
Luna cut her off, voice steady.
"When it comes to you," she said, "I will not lie. I do not forgive you. Not yet. Maybe not ever. I have accepted what you did. I have built myself beyond it. That is mine. Your path is yours. I will not drag you to any end you do not choose. But I will not pull you from the one you carved with your own teeth."
Silver flickered around Selene's edges.
Not bright this time.
Fading.
Luna felt a presence at her back.
The Moon.
And behind that, something else.
Not Shadow.
Not Void.
Just... Quiet.
The place souls went when they stopped clinging so hard to shape.
*She is yours until she lets go,* the Goddess said gently. *Then she is Mine. And then—not even I will force what she will not release.*
Selene trembled.
Looked up at Luna, teeth bared.
"Please," she whispered.
The word was different this time.
Less edge.
More... surrender.
Luna's heart squeezed.
She knelt.
Met Selene's gaze up close.
For the first time, she let herself see the woman not as tormentor, not as rival, but as a tired, terrified creature who had lived her whole life running from an inner voice that sounded a lot like the ones Luna had faced this very morning.
"You do not have to fight anymore," Luna said quietly. "You do not have to prove anything. Not to them. Not to me. Not even to Her. You can just... stop."
Selene's lip trembled.
Her shoulders, always held so straight, so proud, slumped.
"I do not know how," she whispered.
Luna reached out.
For the first and last time, she touched Selene's face.
Her thumb brushed dirt from her cheek.
Blood from the corner of her mouth.
"You do it like this," she said.
She dropped her hand.
Sat back on her heels.
Did nothing.
No binding.
No banishment.
No mercy killing.
No grand speech.
She simply made space.
Selene stared at her.
At the open night.
At the Moon.
At the wolves below.
Her breath hitched.
Hitched again.
Something in her eyes broke.
Not light.
Not dark.
Grip.
Fingers that had clutched so hard for so long finally... uncurled.
She exhaled.
Long.
Shuddering.
The silver around her flickered.
Then went out.
Her body crumpled.
Not in violence.
In collapse.
She hit the stone gently.
As if someone caught her, slowed her, laid her down.
Her chest rose once.
Twice.
Stopped.
Luna felt it.
The tiny, almost-imperceptible shift in the air when a soul leaves a body.
No fanfare.
No scream.
Just a soft... absence.
Selene's last stand had not ended in blood and fury.
It had ended in a choice she had never made in life:
Letting go.
Luna sat very still.
Breath moving.
Heart beating.
The pack below began to stir as the last tendrils of Shadow left their dreams.
Pups whimpered.
Mothers soothed.
Warriors woke with hands near weapons, then relaxed as they saw no enemy at the gate.
On the wall, the enthralled guards groaned and blinked, confusion flooding their faces.
"What happened?" one mumbled.
"Bad dream," Rhea said gruffly. "We will fill you in later."
Rebel crouched beside Selene's still form, grimacing.
"You sure she is... gone?" he asked quietly.
Luna nodded.
"Yes," she said. "This time, she is not holding on to anything."
Orion knelt beside Luna, one hand on her back.
Through the bond, he poured not questions.
Not demands.
Just presence.
"I wanted to kill her," he said softly, low enough that only Luna and the nearest few could hear. "For what she did to you. For what she nearly did to the pack. I thought, when this day came, I would take that kill. Make it... mine."
Luna looked at Selene.
At the ruin of what she had been.
At the girl she might once have been.
"I thought that, too," she admitted. "A long time ago."
"Do you regret...?" he began.
She shook her head.
"No," she said simply. "This was her fight. Her ending. I would not rob her of even that choice."
Maera, drawn by the disturbance, limped up the stairs, cane thumping.
She took in the scene in one sweep.
Selene's body.
Luna's exhausted calm.
The thawing guards.
The fading silver mist.
"Shadow?" she asked curtly.
"Gone," Luna said. "For now."
Maera studied her.
"You did not drag her through the streets," the elder observed. "You did not call the pack to watch. You did not... perform."
Luna's lips twitched.
"What would that prove?" she asked. "That I can kill a desperate woman? We already know I can kill. This... was about something else."
Maera eyed Selene.
"I will not mourn her," she said. "She bled us for too long. But I will remember this. That in the end, she died not by claw, but by release."
She tapped her cane.
"See to the body," she told Rhea and Rebel. "With respect. Not ceremony. We are done giving her the stage."
They nodded.
Lifted Selene.
Carried her down.
Luna watched until they disappeared around a tower.
Then let her shoulders sag.
"You are shaking," Orion murmured.
"I let a void try to eat me," she said. "I am allowed."
He pulled her gently against him.
She went.
Rested her forehead against his shoulder.
The elements within her, roused to full battle, now settled, heavy and humming.
"You did not answer to anyone up there," Orion said quietly, after a moment. "Not to Selene's taunts. Not to the pack's fear. Not even to the Moon demanding a particular ending. You... chose. On your own terms."
She thought of the chain she had broken at dawn.
Of the way she had faced Selene's last venom without needing to prove anything to her.
Without needing to justify herself to the pack.
"Yes," she said.
It felt... right.
Solid.
Grief flickered in her chest.
Not for Selene specifically.
For the whole ugly, twisting knot of their shared history.
For every version of themselves they had both been, trapped in roles written by others.
"Is it wrong that I am... relieved?" she asked quietly. "That she is gone?"
"No," Orion said. "It would be strange if you were not."
"Part of me wished she would beg forgiveness," Luna confessed. "All those years, I rehearsed what I would say if she ever said 'I am sorry.' In the end... she did not. Not really. She just... stopped fighting."
"Sometimes that is all some wolves can manage," Orion said. "Sometimes, that is the most honest thing they ever do."
Luna nodded.
"Then let that be enough," she said softly. "No monument. No curses spat over her grave. No songs. Just... an ending."
The Moon slid out from behind a thin cloud, casting the wall in silver.
*It is done,* the Goddess said.
"Will you... take her?" Luna asked.
A pause.
*I will hold what she lets Me hold,* the Moon replied. *The rest will scatter. Not all souls stay whole. That is their choice, too.*
Luna exhaled.
Watched it plume white in the cool air.
Down below, the pack began to truly wake.
Voices rose.
Questions.
Rumors.
Fear scent.
She straightened.
Orion did, too.
"What will you tell them?" he asked.
"The truth," she said. "That Selene came back. That she tried to hollow us out. That she failed. That she is gone. That we are safe—for now. That we will never again let our unhealed wounds be doors for shadows."
He nodded.
"And what will you tell yourself?" he pressed, gaze searching.
She met his eyes.
"I did enough," she said firmly. "I was enough. I am allowed to rest."
He smiled, eyes shining.
"That," he said, "is the bravest thing I have heard you say yet."
She snorted.
"Wait till you hear me ask for help," she retorted.
He laughed.
She let the sound warm her.
Then turned toward the stairs.
She descended into a den that had once been Selene's stage.
Now it was hers.
Not to perform.
To live.
To lead.
To answer only to the voice inside her that had finally, fully, become her own.
Selene's last stand had been desperate.
Destructive.
In the end, it had shattered not Luna's rise, but the last lingering shadow cast by a woman who had built her kingdom on control.
Luna walked forward, free of that shadow, elements singing quietly in her bones, the pack's eyes turning not in fear, not in blind adoration, but in trust hard-won.
No more chains.
Not even those forged by the ghosts of those who had tried to define her.
Her path, from this night on, would bear Selene's footprints only as warnings.
Never again as the lines that marked her limits.