Thunder growled across the skies as dawn broke blood-red over the Moonstone Valley. War had come—not in the sudden burst of night-raiding violence, but in the slow, ominous crawl of tension and whispered betrayal.

Aria stood just outside the sealed crypt, her hands still warm with the pulse of her sister’s heartbeat. Elena lay within the stone chamber below, resting in magical stasis. Her body was stable, but her soul—still tangled in Mara’s cruel threads—remained in danger.

Behind ...