The moonlight lingered long past dawn.

Even as the sun began its slow ascent, golden rays brushing the treetops in the distance, the Moonstone Sanctuary remained wrapped in a cool, silvery hush. The night had not fully left—refusing, it seemed, to loosen its grip on Aria and the events of the night before.

The ritual had worked. Caleb lived.

But something was different now. Not broken—just changed. In him. In her. In the fragile space between them.

Aria stood alone in the inner ...