POV: Everly
She didn't remember falling asleep.
Only that her bones ached beneath the weight of what she hadn't said, what she couldn't show. That her chest hurt with a kind of sadness that had no name, and the firelight in the courtyard had blurred around her.
Then... silence.
Not emptiness.
Depth.
Everly opened her eyes slowly.
Grass, soft and silvered with dew, spread out under her bare feet. Above, the sky stretched in impossible stillness, a wash of deep indigo stitched with moving stars. The breeze tasted of violets and something older.
The garden.
But not the one she knew. This place breathed. Every vine curled toward her like a question. The trees shimmered. And the air... it vibrated. Slow. Alive.
She turned, unsure, and then she saw her. Selene stepped into view, paws silent against the grass. She was magnificent, large, luminous, her coat shimmering with a silver so soft it looked woven from moonlight itself. Her eyes met Everly's, clear and knowing, glowing faintly gold.
"Selene…" Everly breathed.
The wolf dipped her head.
Everly took a step forward, her throat thick. "You're really here."
"I've always been here," Selene said, not in thought, but in voice, warm and resonant in Everly's mind.
"I didn't know if you were real," Everly admitted, folding her arms around herself.
Selene circled her once, brushing her flank gently against Everly's side before sitting down. "You never asked. You were too afraid of the answer."
Everly blinked. "Of what? That I was imagining you?"
"That you were never meant to have me." A pause. "That you were wrong. Broken."
The words struck too close. Everly looked down. "I've felt broken for so long… I think I started to believe it."
"You're not," Selene said. "You're not what they say you are. You never were."
They walked together, side by side, down a path of glowing moss and dream light.
Everly sighed. "Why now? Why are you stronger here?"
"Because the truth sleeps closer in places like this. When the world forgets to lie, I can speak."
They stopped before a wall of woven vines. A single sigil glowed at its center, a crescent moon coiled in delicate vinework. It pulsated softly.
Everly reached out. "I've seen this before. In a report… drawn beside rogue border symbols."
"It's older than the rogues."
Everly's brow furrowed. "Then what is it?"
Selene tilted her head, expression unreadable. "A reminder," she said. "Of what came before names."
Further in, fog began to rise. The garden shifted again, air thickened, colors deepened. The sky folded in on itself and the ground below shimmered like a mirror of stars.
Selene's ears pinned. "Something is waking," she murmured.
Everly glanced at her. "You mean you?"
"No." Selene's voice lowered. "Something… older. It's not me."
A new sound rippled through the space. A hum, not musical, not quite, but harmonic. Ancient. Every hair on Everly's arms stood up.
She followed it.
At the heart of the garden stood a new archway, one she had never seen. It was built not of stone, but of thorned vines, tangled and alive. Flowers bloomed and died in the span of seconds across its surface. Behind it, light pulsed like breath.
Everly stepped forward instinctively.
"Do you know what this is?" she asked.
Selene hesitated. "No." Her voice was wary now. "But it's watching you."
"Watching me?"
"Calling to you."
Everly raised her hand slowly.
She didn't touch the arch, but the air beneath her palm sparked. Not heat. Just sensation. As if the space between her skin and the vines recognized her. Something inside her chest shifted.
The hum crescendoed…still not a voice but not silence either. Emotion swelled behind her ribs…grief, awe, light, longing.
A third presence.
Selene growled low, not at Everly, but the door. "She's waking up. Not just you. Be careful."
"Who is she?" Everly asked, her voice trembling.
Selene backed up a step. "I don't know her name. But she knows yours."
Everly looked toward the arch as a small crack spread across it, hairline thin, just enough for a flash of golden light to escape. And for one moment, just one, she thought she heard…
Laughter?
No…wings.
A rustle of wings. And a hum like a crown being placed on soil.
The garden tilted.
Selene called her name once, sharply.
And Everly fell backward, falling not down but through.
She woke with a gasp.
Sweat beaded along her temple. Her fingers were clenched in the threadbare blanket beneath her. The servant's corridor beyond her curtain was quiet but something was different.
Her right palm burned faintly. She opened it and saw a thin red line, like a thorn scratch, ran from wrist to finger.
And next to her pillow, resting neatly and impossibly intact; a moon-vine flower. Blue. Alive. Blooming. She picked it up, heart thudding. "How…?"
But there was no answer.
Only the faint echo of Selene's voice still tangled in her bones.
And the memory of a third pulse… waiting.