The wind moved like a whisper of something unsaid. It tugged at the edges of Lian Wolfe's tattered cloak, caught in his hair like memory. He stood at the cliff's edge, boots rooted in the cold stone, eyes raised to the pale, fractured moon—the one they called the Bone Moon, the one that only rose on the anniversary of betrayal.
A wolf howled far off in the dark. Not in mourning. Not in warning. In recognition.
Lian didn't move.
He hadn't spoken aloud in days. Maybe weeks. There was no one to speak to—not since the last star-fallen beast had died in his arms three valleys back. Not since the dreams had returned.
Dreams of blue mist hair. Dreams of green eyes that never blinked, just watched. Dreams of a voice that once called his true name—not the name of a warrior, not the name the Order gave him… but the one whispered only when no one else could hear.
Aure.
He hadn't spoken it in years. But tonight, under the Bone Moon, he felt it burn on his tongue like truth trying to be remembered.
Something in the sky cracked. He looked up. No thunder. No storm. Just a rift—a thread of light in the sky, like the world itself was being stitched open.
And in that split second, he felt it:
He was coming back.