Chapter 20The Spark That Remained

The dust settled around Rissa's knees as she pressed her ear to Dorian's chest. Silence. Then—a whisper of movement, paper-thin. A heartbeat.

She almost sobbed.

His chest rose once, shallow and uneven, then fell. Not enough. Not nearly enough. The spark she'd shoved into his wound flickered inside her like a candle in a storm, barely there now, refusing to die even as her own body trembled with exhaustion.

"Stay with me," she breathed against his skin.

His fingers twitched. Just barely. But it was something.

Behind her, Vance's laughter had faded into the trees, swallowed by the sound of Elara's voice cutting through the chaos. "Move. Gather the living. We have minutes, not hours."

Rissa lifted her head. The compound looked like a wound—smoke curling from collapsed beams, bodies sprawled where the Moonstone's shattering had thrown them. But some were stirring. Rising. Staring at their own hands like they'd never seen them before.

Human hands.

A woman stumbled past, her eyes wild. "What have you done?" Her voice cracked. "I can't feel it. I can't feel the *pack*."

"You're alive," Rissa said. It came out harder than she meant.

The woman's face twisted. "This isn't living."

Rissa turned back to Dorian. His lips were pale, his skin cold, but the wound in his chest was sealed—a faint scar where the spark had burned through. She pressed two fingers to his throat. A pulse. Weak, but steady.

"Help me," she said to no one in particular.

Two of the freed wolves—men she didn't recognize—hesitated, then lifted Dorian onto a torn piece of canvas. They moved quickly, as if muscle memory from years of obedience still guided them. Rissa stayed at his side, one hand on his chest, feeling each shallow breath.

Elara appeared at her elbow, face streaked with ash and blood. "Mira's gone."

Rissa's throat tightened. She'd known. Somehow, she'd known.

"We found her near the stone's base," Elara continued, voice flat. "She held it back long enough for you to finish it."

"I need to see her."

"No. You need to keep moving." Elara's hand closed around Rissa's wrist. "Vance took four of the enforcers and fled into the eastern woods. He won't stay gone long. And the ones who stayed—" She gestured at the dazed survivors. "They're scared. They'll follow whoever gives them direction first."

Rissa looked at the group. Maybe thirty people, standing in clusters, some weeping, some staring at the sky as if waiting for their wolf to return. A few watched her with open hostility.

She was the one who'd taken everything from them.

"They'll follow you," she said.

"No. They'll follow the one who ended it." Elara's gaze was unreadable. "You carry more weight here than you know."

---

They moved at dawn.

The forest swallowed them quickly, cold and indifferent. Rissa walked beside Dorian's stretcher, her muscles screaming, her mind blank with exhaustion. Every few minutes she checked his pulse. Still there. Still fighting.

Half a mile in, they found the cache.

It sat in the hollow of an old oak, wrapped in oilcloth: dried meat, bandages, a bottle of antiseptic, and a folded note. Rissa opened it with trembling fingers.

*For the one who ends it.*

Lorna's handwriting. She must have left it days ago—before the betrayal, before the blood, before everything.

Rissa crumpled the paper and shoved it in her pocket.

"Keep moving," she said. Her voice didn't sound like her own.

They stopped at noon in a clearing ringed by pines. The wounded were tended. Water was rationed. Someone built a small fire, and the smell of smoke made Rissa's stomach turn.

She sat with Dorian's head in her lap, watching his chest rise and fall. His face was slack, peaceful almost. She hated it.

"Rissa."

Elara stood at the edge of the clearing, motioning her away from the group.

Rissa didn't want to move. Every step away from Dorian felt like a betrayal. But she eased his head onto a folded jacket and followed.

The older woman waited until they were out of earshot, then turned to face the mountain that loomed beyond the trees. The peak where the pack had first settled, generations ago.

"The shard you destroyed," Elara said slowly, "was never the true heart of the Moonstone."

Rissa's blood went cold.

"It was a fragment. A powerful one—enough to sustain the pack's corruption for decades. But the heart is still there." Elara pointed at the mountain. "Buried deep in a cave beneath the original settlement. Where Vance is heading now."

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

"Because you needed to believe it was over." Elara's voice cracked, just slightly. "Because if you'd known, you might have hesitated. And hesitation would have killed us all."

Rissa stared at the mountain. At the dark line of trees where Vance had vanished.

"I'll find him," she said. "After Dorian is safe."

"You may not have that long."

"Then I'll make the time."

Elara held her gaze for a long moment, then nodded once. "We'll reach the safe house by nightfall. After that—"

"After that, I finish it."

The wind picked up, carrying the scent of pine and distant rain. Somewhere in the trees, a bird called out. Normal. Ordinary. A world that had no idea what had happened here.

Rissa looked down at her hands.

No claws. No fur. Just skin and bone and the faintest warmth where the spark still lingered.

Her wolf was gone.

But she was still breathing.

She walked back to Dorian, knelt beside him, and pressed her forehead to his. His breath ghosted across her cheek.

"Don't you dare leave me," she whispered. "Not yet."

His fingers twitched again. And this time, they curled around hers.