The night was thick with smoke and death. Ash drifted through the air like black snow, and the battlefield that had once echoed with roars now lay in eerie silence. The only sound left was the wind scraping across ruined stone and the sound of Darius’s heartbeat, loud and uneven, as he knelt in the wreckage.

Selene lay limp in his arms.

Her skin was pale beneath the moonlight, her lips faintly blue, her once-vibrant aura dimmed to nothing. The scent of her blood still lingered, sharp and ...