Elara didn't flinch, even as Vael's presence pressed against her like a stormcloud. The wind stirred around them, though no leaves moved, and the silence in the clearing was deafening.
"I didn't come here to hear your delusions," she said evenly.
Vael smirked. "No? Then perhaps you came for the truth."
He circled her slowly, like a predator assessing prey — or a king greeting an equal. "You've felt it, haven't you? The flame waking inside you. The whispers in your dreams. The ache in your bones under the moonlight."
Elara stiffened. "How do you know what I've felt?"
"Because I once felt it too," Vael said, stopping in front of her. "Before I was betrayed. Before your Alpha's ancestors hunted my kind and sealed our power. But you… You are different."
He reached toward her, not touching, but hovering just close enough that she could feel the chill of his magic. "You are Moonborn, yes — but Flamebound as well. A rare fusion. It makes you powerful. Dangerous."
"And yet you fear me," Elara said, her voice hardening.
His expression darkened. "No. I envy you. You have what I lost. What I will reclaim."
He stepped back, spreading his arms. "Join me, Elara. Together, we could unmake the chains that bind our kind. No more councils. No more wars. Just fire and freedom."
Elara's pulse quickened. There was something almost seductive in his words — a twisted promise of peace, of strength without limits.
But then she thought of Kael. Of the pack. Of the children who ran through the woods without fear. Of how fiercely she had fought to belong — not as a weapon, but as a protector.
She looked Vael in the eye. "You say I was born to rule. But I was born to protect."
Vael's gaze sharpened. "Then you choose weakness."
"I choose love," she whispered, voice like steel wrapped in silk.
His expression twisted into something darker. "So be it."
The ground trembled. The roots of the Eclipse Tree writhed, and shadows poured from the forest — monstrous, shifting, snarling.
Vael's voice echoed around her, cold and final. "Then prepare to be destroyed with the rest."