The stars had gone out.

Above the ridge where the Spirit Grove once shimmered, the heavens were unnaturally blank—an endless sheet of black velvet, no moon, no constellations, no light. Aria stood beneath it, her breath misting in the still air, her fingers laced with Caleb’s. Neither of them spoke. The silence between them wasn’t hollow—it pulsed with something sacred, something ancient.

“It’s beginning,” Solene had said before fading into the rootstones. “The sky will mirror ...