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They stay behind. As we pass the edge of the village, something inside me tightens—not regret. Not grief.

Finality.

Shutting the door on them feels like the last breath of something I didn’t know I was still holding. Maeve. The others. Everything we were when we believed love could fix what we refused to name.

But Luna—

She doesn’t stay behind with them.

She walks ahead.

Sheclaimsus.

And for the first time in over a century, I realize this isn't about choosing between past and present. It's about the simple, brutal truth I’ve been avoiding since the moment I laid eyes on her.

They leave me behind on purpose. It’s not subtle. Riven lingers longer than necessary, gaze cutting through me like he already knows the excuse I’m forming and wants me to choke on it. Elias glances over his shoulder, mouth twitching like he wants to make some half-assed joke about doomed romance and death wishes but thinks better of it. Even Silas—whose sense of timing is usually comparable to a landslide—gives me a look before nudging Luna toward the rear of the group with an ease that’s too calculated to be accidental.

They want me to talk to her. Which is almost amusing. As if words ever fixed anything between us. As if she hasn’t already forgiven me. And still—forgivenisn’t the same asforgotten.

There’s distance in the way she walks beside me, not avoiding but not inviting either. Her gaze is on the path ahead, not on me. She doesn’t fidget. She doesn’t fold in on herself. She holds still like she always does, spine straight, mouth set, the barest flicker of awareness keeping me in her periphery—ready if I speak, prepared if I don’t.

The path narrows, wet stone giving way to a stretch of low, whispering pines. The air smells like old ash and damp lichen.The others are far enough ahead now that their voices have faded to murmurs. There’s no one left but her.

And me.

I clear my throat—not because I need to—but because the words I don’t want to say are already forming behind my teeth, and if I don’t break the silence, I’ll drown in it.

“This thing with Maeve,” I say, voice rougher than I intend, “it wasn’t what you think.”

She doesn’t stop walking. Doesn’t even glance at me. “And what do I think, Lucien?”

Her voice is quiet. Not cold. Worse. It'smeasured. Like she’s weighing how much space to give me before I use it to hurt her again.

“I don’t know,” I admit, because anything else would be a lie. “I don’t know what you think anymore.”

That earns me a glance. Just a flick of those impossible eyes, like she’s surprised I told the truth. Or maybe she expected me to use Dominion on the moment—to force a clean slate into place. Bend her will. Rewrite history.

I exhale slowly, fingers flexing at my side, aching with the want to explain something I can’t name.

“Maeve…” The word tastes strange now. Lighter. Smaller. “She was the last woman I allowed myself to love. And when she died, I told myself that was it. That I’d already given the best of me, and there was nothing left worth offering anyone else.”

Luna doesn’t answer. But she listens. I can feel it in the way she walks. The subtle shift of weight. The tilt of her head that says keep going.

“I thought I’d feel something when I saw her again,” I continue. “Grief. Anger. Longing. But all I felt was—nothing. Like the grief finally died, and I didn’t notice until it was gone.”

She nods once, and I can’t read her expression. She gives me no grace, no condemnation. Just silence. A chance.

“And now you want to know what that means,” she says finally, her voice soft but exact.

I stop walking.

She stops too.

It takes a second before I can speak. Not because I don’t have the words. Because I do. I just don’t know who I am if I say them out loud.

“It means I thought I buried love in Maeve’s grave. And you proved I didn’t.”

Luna’s gaze doesn’t soften. She doesn’t step closer. But something in her quietens. Like her breath catches before she lets it out again, steady and clean. I step forward—not close enough to touch, just enough to feel the heat of her.