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Wide. Wild. And finally—ready.

The magic bursts from her hands like a scream, raw and radiant, violet and gold laced with something darker, older. It cuts through the women like wind through fire, and for a second, the worldstills.

They drop. Dozens of them. But not dead. Justburned.

And she’s still standing. Hair wild. Hands shaking. Chest heaving. Mine. Every bond in my body howls for her. Every inch of me aches to drag her into my arms and devour the space between us. But we’re not done.

Because through the smoke, through the blood and ash and silence—

Maeve walks forward.

Unaffected. Calm.

And she smiles like this is exactly what she wanted.

Lucien steps forward, blood slick down his arm from the arrow still buried in his shoulder, jaw clenched like the only thing holding him together is fury. The kind that doesn’t yell. The kind thatburns. The kind that only Luna ever seems to ignite properly.

And right now, she’s behind me, shaking and radiant andvery much alive—which is the only reason I let him pass.

Maeve looks at him like he’s an errant dog trying to snarl at the wrong end of a leash. She doesn’t blink. Doesn’t stop walking. Her gown’s untouched by ash, her skin too smooth, too whole for a corpse. But she is one. She has to be. Irememberholding her broken body while I bled out beside her, kissing her mouth that had already gone cold. But she walks like resurrection is achoiceshe made. Not a gift she earned.

Lucien blocks her path with that stillness he’s always had—that quiet, terrifying gravity. “You don’t get near her.”

Maeve tuts, soft, indulgent. “Lucien. You always did overestimate your importance.”

Lucien, who would’ve cleaved through anyone—anything—to protect us, doesn’t lift a hand. Not to stop her. Not to draw her blood. He just stands there, caught in her orbit like a man watching a ghost he thought he buried deep enough to forget.

Her eyes flick to his shoulder. “Still so dramatic,” she murmurs. “Taking an arrow for a girl you obviously do not to care about. Or was it guilt? Trying to make up for all the things you didn’t do for me?”

Lucien’s lip curls. Not in defense. Indisgust.

“You’re not real,” he says, low. “You’re what the Hollow made of your memory.”

Maeve just smiles wider, stepping so close her breath kisses his throat. “Then stop me.”

He doesn’t.

I do.

I close the distance in three steps, shoving myself between them, not gently. My body takes the hit of her magic, the cold aura that clings to her like rot beneath perfume. She’s stronger than she was. She shouldn’t be. But this place—this twisted echo of the world—feeds on old power, and she has too much of ours still clinging to her skin.

“Try it,” I growl, hand at the hilt of my blade. “Come one step closer, and I’ll give the Hollow your bones.”

Maeve tilts her head, studying me like I’m a new language she already speaks. “Still so volatile, Riven,” she murmurs. “Still so sure you know what you’re protecting.”

“She’smine,” I snap.

“No,” she says gently. “She’sours.Or have you forgotten what you were before her? Who you belonged to before your bond was rewritten?”

Behind me, I hear Luna’s breath catch.

And that—that—is the only warning I get before her power lashes out again, not like fire, but likeforce.Like the rage of something divine. It surges forward and slams into Maeve, lifting her off her feet and throwing her back against the trees, hard enough to crack bark and bone.

Maeve laughs.

It’s a choked, bloody sound, but still soft. “There she is.”

And Maeve rises, eyes full of something cruel and glittering.