Lightfall

The flares had begun to dim—but the war they heralded had only just begun.

When Selena returned to camp, the air itself seemed to tighten. There was no celebration, no warm welcome. Only silence—taut, uncertain. Her arrival was not marked by fanfare, but by confusion and awe. One moment she had vanished into the mist of the Watcher's Tower. The next, she stood again among them, snow melting on her shoulders, frost glimmering in her hair like stars, and a single, pulsing blue feather clenched in her palm.

No one had seen her leave. No one had seen her return.

And yet, there she was—unchanged and entirely changed, her eyes deeper, heavier, as if she had glimpsed truths that the world itself wasn't meant to know.