The cavern did not explode into battle all at once.
War announced itself slowly—through breath held too long, through the grinding of stone as the Circle's cracked pillars leaned inward, through the way the air thickened until every sound felt wrapped in velvet and dread.
Rhen stood with Nymera at the center of the Confluence Circle, their hands clasped so tightly his fingers ached. The sigils on their skin glowed in a steady, defiant rhythm. Not a flare. Not a scream. A decision.
Across from them, King Tidalus watched with a face carved from restraint and sorrow.
"You don't understand what you're invoking," he said quietly. "The Circle was never meant to be used this way."
Nymera lifted her chin. "Neither was the lie you built your peace on."
The words struck him harder than any blade. Rhen saw it—the flinch, the guilt surfacing like a body long drowned. Tidalus took a step back, then another, as if the Circle itself pushed him away.
Outside the cavern, the howls rose—near enough now that Rhen could distinguish individual voices. Moonbound packs. At least three. The sound threaded with command, not hunger.
They were being driven.
Rhen's wolf snarled in response, not in challenge, but in recognition. They're not here by choice.
A crash echoed through the tunnel as the first wave of water slammed into the entrance, held back only by the Circle's humming boundary. Tridents struck stone. Voices shouted. The Deep had arrived too.
"Both sides," Rhen muttered. "They coordinated."
Nymera closed her eyes, reaching outward with the Voice—not to command, but to listen. The sea answered reluctantly, like a witness dragged to the stand.
"They're afraid," she said. "All of them. Afraid of what happens if we survive this."
The Circle's hum deepened. The braided symbols etched into the pillars began to glow, lines crawling like living script.
Tidalus stared. "Stop this," he pleaded, the king gone, a father exposed. "If the Circle completes, it will bind you permanently. There will be no separation—no escape—from each other or from the Convergence."
Rhen didn't hesitate. "We know."
Nymera opened her eyes. "That's the price."
The cavern shook as the Moonbound broke through the outer passage. Wolves poured in—half-shifted forms with silvered eyes, armor strapped to fur and flesh alike. Their leader stepped forward, taller than the rest, his presence pressing on Rhen's senses like a weight.
"Rhen of the Broken Line," the leader called. "By authority of the Elders, you are commanded to submit."
Rhen met his gaze. "By authority of my own blood, I refuse."
The leader's eyes flicked to Nymera, then to the Circle. "Princess," he said, voice almost gentle. "Step away from him. This doesn't have to end in slaughter."
Nymera's voice was calm—and devastating. "It already did. Long ago."
She lifted her hands.
The Circle answered.
Light surged upward, not blinding, but revealing. The air filled with images—echoes pulled from the Vault, from Lunara's truth. The first Convergence unfolded above them in shimmering clarity: the Councils' betrayal, the poisoned tides, the cursed moon-magic, Azkarel torn apart trying to stop the war.
The Moonbound leader staggered. Several wolves dropped to one knee, clutching their heads as memories—their ancestors' memories—flooded back.
"This is a trick," someone shouted. "An illusion!"
"No," Nymera said softly. "It's a confession."
The Deep guards faltered as well, tridents lowering. Murmurs rippled through the cavern like a current changing direction.
Tidalus whispered, "What have I done…"
Rhen felt the bond tighten—not painfully, but insistently. The Circle was asking for something now. Not blood. Not sacrifice.
Commitment.
A presence pressed in from below—vast and familiar.
Azkarel rose from the stone at the cavern's edge, his form half-solid, half-memory. The guardian's eyes burned brighter than before, fixed on the Circle.
"You force the reckoning," he intoned. "And the world will demand payment."
Rhen stepped forward, unafraid. "Name it."
Azkarel's gaze flicked between them. "One of you must anchor the bond."
Nymera stiffened. "What does that mean?"
"One becomes the Bridge," Azkarel said. "The living conduit that stabilizes the Convergence. Bound to both realms. Never fully of either."
Silence fell like a held breath before a storm.
Rhen's heart hammered. He understood immediately. He felt how the moon pulled him, how the land answered his blood. He could hold it. He could take it.
"I will," he said.
"No," Nymera said sharply at the same time. "I will."
They turned to each other, voices colliding.
"You already carry the Voice," Rhen argued. "This would tear you apart."
"And you think it wouldn't tear you?" Nymera shot back. "You barely survive the moon as it is."
Azkarel watched, expression unreadable. "Choose," he urged. "Or the Circle will choose for you."
The pressure built. The pillars cracked further. Outside, the sea and the packs pressed in again, sensing the moment slipping away.
Rhen cupped Nymera's face, forehead resting against hers. Through the bond, he let her feel everything—the loneliness of the forest, the rage of being hunted, the quiet hope he'd never named until he saw her under the moon.
"I won't lose you," he said hoarsely.
Nymera's eyes shone with tears she didn't let fall. She sent him her own truth—the suffocation of the Court, the silence of never being heard, the terror of becoming a symbol instead of a person.
"We don't lose each other," she whispered. "We share the weight."
Understanding slammed into Rhen like a wave.
"Together," he breathed.
They turned back to Azkarel as one.
"We anchor it together," Nymera said. "A dual bridge. Tide and moon. Neither alone."
Azkarel stared at them—really stared—and something ancient shifted in his gaze.
"It has never been done," he said.
Rhen bared his teeth in a feral grin. "History's full of firsts."
The guardian raised his hands. The Circle roared.
Light poured into them—searing, binding, rewriting. Rhen screamed as the wolf and the man fused not into one, but into harmony. Nymera cried out as the tidefire stabilized, no longer a storm but a current she could ride.
The sigils burned gold, then settled into a new shape—intertwined, equal.
The cavern fell silent.
When the light faded, Rhen and Nymera stood breathing hard, still holding each other.
The Moonbound lowered their heads.
The Deep guards knelt.
Tidalus sank to his knees, tears finally breaking free. "My daughter…"
Nymera looked at him—not with anger, but with sorrow. "I will come back," she said. "But not as what you tried to make me."
Azkarel bowed his head. "The lie is broken," he said. "The reckoning begins."
Far away, councils would rage. Elders would scheme. The world would resist the truth with everything it had.
But here, in the heart of the Reach, a new balance had taken its first breath.
Rhen squeezed Nymera's hand and felt the future press close—dangerous, uncertain, theirs.