The first thing I noticed was the quiet.
Not the eerie stillness that had haunted Crescent Ridge before the Eclipse. Not the stiff, trembling silence of wolves bracing for war. This quiet felt different. Soft. Uncertain. Wounded. The kind that follows the end of something enormous.
The storm had faded. Wolves stood where the courtyard used to be, surrounded by cracked stone and scorched earth. The Eclipse’s red glow was gone. Only pale morning light drifted across the ridge, touching broken walls and fallen beams.
I pushed myself upright, my chest still warm with the last echo of silver light. My brothers rose with me. Our marks glowed faintly beneath the soot on our skin.
Soren wiped at his face. “Is it over?”
Kael scanned the courtyard with sharp eyes. “For now.”
Ryn exhaled slowly
