Kaelen stumbled back.
Elara's eyes, once mirrors of moonlight, now shimmered with darkness so complete it felt like looking into the void between stars. Not black. Not shadow. But something older. Hungrier.
"Elara…" he whispered.
She stood perfectly still, her breath shallow, her gaze fixed on him—yet looking through him. The mists of the Veil swirled violently around her, stirred by unseen forces. Her skin glowed faintly, veins pulsing with silver and obsidian light.
He had expected pain. Tears. A desperate reunion.
But what stood before him was not the Elara he remembered.
She tilted her head slowly. "You shouldn't have come here."
Kaelen's heart twisted. "I came to bring you home."
She stepped forward, barefoot in the eternal fog, her presence pressing on him like gravity.
"This is my home now," she said.
Kaelen shook his head. "No. This place—it feeds on indecision. You're being twisted by it."
Elara raised her hand, and the fog obeyed her like a tide pulled by a moon.
"I am not twisted," she said coldly. "I am awakened."
In the waking world, Aiden stood outside the temple, his knuckles bloodied from where he'd struck the stone wall again and again. Warriors watched in silence, afraid to approach him. His grief had calcified into something sharp—something violent.
Suri finally came.
"You can't stay here," she said gently.
"She chose him," Aiden muttered, not turning around. "Even after everything."
Suri's voice was quiet. "Or maybe fate did."
"I would have died for her."
"I know. And maybe you still will."
Aiden's head snapped around. "What are you talking about?"
"She's not safe," Suri said. "Not from the Veil. Not from Kaelen. And not even from herself."
Aiden frowned. "What are you saying?"
Suri hesitated, then spoke the words she feared.
"She may not return whole."
In the Veil, Kaelen stepped closer. "Elara, you were the Oracle. You were light and grace and—"
"I was," she said. "Now I am something more."
The mirrored versions of herself rose behind her again, watching. One held a silver dagger. The other, a black flame.
"This realm," Elara whispered, "showed me the truth. That I was always meant to end the Oath."
Kaelen blinked. "What are you talking about?"
Elara's body convulsed once more—runic marks flaring along her arms, symbols from the first era of wolves and stars.
She looked up.
"I am the end of the prophecy," she said. "Not the fulfillment."
Suddenly, the fog burst outward—revealing the Temple of Eyes, the final gate in the Veil. A palace of glass and mirrors suspended over nothingness.
And behind its gates—
A door marked with the True Name of the Moon.
Kaelen's breath caught.
He had heard whispers of this place. Even Selene feared it. To enter was to confront the unspoken truths of one's soul. The place where fate itself was rewritten.
Elara walked toward it.
Kaelen ran after her. "You don't understand what that door is—"
"I understand perfectly," she said. "Behind that door is choice. Real choice. For once in my life."
Kaelen grabbed her wrist.
"Elara, please," he begged. "Come back with me. We can fix this. Together."
She turned slowly—and for a moment, her eyes softened.
"I loved you once," she said. "But love isn't enough anymore."
Kaelen's hand dropped.
Elara placed her palm on the door.
And it opened.
Beyond it was not light. Not darkness.
But everything.
A rush of sound, memory, color, pain. Time folding in on itself. A scream from a future not yet born.
Kaelen shielded his face—but Elara stepped through without hesitation.
And vanished.
The door slammed shut behind her.
Outside the Veil, Selene cried out and clutched her chest.
"She's gone," she gasped. "She crossed the Threshold."
Suri looked at her. "What does that mean?"
Selene turned her face away.
"It means she may never be Elara again."
Kaelen stood before the door, breath ragged.
"I'll follow her," he said.
But the door was sealed. The symbols had changed.
Now they bore his name.
Only the Betrayer may enter.
He placed his hand on it—and the world exploded.
He found himself in a dark forest, moonless and cold.
Elara stood ahead of him—but she was younger. A teenager. Alone. Crying.
She turned and looked at him.
"Why did you leave me?" she asked.
Kaelen tried to speak, but no words came.
A hundred memories rained from the trees—every lie he'd ever told, every promise broken, every soul he'd damned in pursuit of power.
"You betrayed me," she said again.
And behind her, the sky split open—revealing an older Elara, cloaked in starlight and crowned in bone.
She pointed at him.
"Only by burning will you find the truth."