Ten years after the last dawn, Selena stood alone on the highest peak of the northern mountains, where the air was so thin that mortal lungs could not draw breath, where the cold would kill an unprotected human in minutes. But she was not mortal, had not been for seventy-seven years, and the cold was nothing compared to the fire that burned eternal within her core.
She had come here to think, to process what the past decade had taught her about herself and her place in a world without marrow. The absence of cosmic corruption had changed things in ways both obvious and subtle. Without supernatural threats constantly emerging, her role as guardian had shifted. There were still natural disasters to avert, still conflicts that required mediation, still moments when immortal power was needed to protect mortal lives. But the constant vigilance, the endless war against fundamental wrongness—that was over.
