Aria's POV

The sacred grove stood silent under the moon's cold gaze.

I knelt on the soft earth, my knees pressing into moss that had grown undisturbed for centuries. Ancient trees surrounded me, their branches twisted and gnarled like the hands of elders reaching toward the sky. This place had always been sacred to our kind, a space where the veil between our world and the divine grew thin.

My hands trembled as I pressed them together, fingers interlaced in the traditional prayer position my ...