The stars pulsed faintly above Nightfall's lands, but Aria barely noticed them. Her hand was still warm from Caleb's grasp, his touch still humming through her veins like wildfire. The mark she had received—the Vein of Starlight—glowed subtly beneath her skin, hidden but very much alive, as if it pulsed with secrets of its own.
They were alone now, in the old sanctuary near the edge of the glade, a ruin Solene once called "the Listening Hollow." Moonlight filtered through the fractured stone roof, dappling the mossy ground in silver. Caleb stood with his back to her, the silence between them tense and charged.
"Do you feel it too?" Aria asked softly.
He turned, his eyes shadowed. "The mark? Or the way everything is shifting?"
"Both." She stepped closer. "And something else… like something ancient is watching. Waiting."
