The descent into the valley felt like walking into a different world entirely.
Massive trees rose on either side of the old path, their leaves catching the light in a strange silver sheen that made the whole canopy look faintly lit from within.
Pale flowers grew low along the ground, closed tight against the afternoon sun, though something told Hazel they’d look completely different once night fell.
Stone structures rose here and there among the roots, half swallowed by centuries of growth, and scattered between them stood old moonstone pillars, worn smooth by time but still standing.
Hazel couldn’t stop looking around.
Aldrien moved more carefully, his attention catching on the symbols carved into the rock along the stream, something in their shape tugging at a memory he couldn’t quite place.
“These markings,” he said, crouching near one of the stones.
“Some of them look like the ones from our wedding altar.”
Hazel came to stand beside him, studying the carving, and felt an uneasy recognition settle over her too.
Garrick caught up with them a moment later, having wandered ahead to check the trail, and explained what little he knew of the valley’s history.
Long before either the Black or Pinecrest territories existed, this place had served as a gathering ground for ancient wolf clans, somewhere they came to perform moonstone ceremonies tied to traditions far older than anything either pack still practiced.
Nobody knew exactly why the valley had eventually been abandoned.
Even Garrick, who’d lived in these woods longer than he cared to admit, didn’t claim to understand the full story.
They found the smaller shrine tucked behind a wall of vines not long after, and the moment Hazel pushed the growth aside, she went still.
At the center stood a cracked moonstone altar, its shape almost identical to the one that had shattered beneath their hands on their wedding day.
Aldrien reached out and touched one of the markings along its edge.
The stone flickered with a faint glow beneath his fingers, there and gone in an instant.
They both froze, staring at it, waiting for it to happen again.
Hazel noticed an inscription circling the base of the altar, worn and partially broken, but enough of it remained legible to make out a few words.
Two souls.
One vessel.
The rest had crumbled away entirely, leaving them with fragments instead of any real answer.
“Do you think this has something to do with what happened to us?” Aldrien asked quietly.
Hazel didn’t want to say yes, mostly because saying it out loud made it feel more real, but she thought so too.
Garrick noticed the way they’d gone quiet studying the stone and offered, without much explanation, to check the surrounding trail for signs of trouble.
He left them alone with the shrine, and the valley settled into something even quieter once he’d gone, the air around them heavy with a kind of stillness that felt deliberate.
Hazel stood there in Aldrien’s body, tracing the edge of the moonstone with her eyes, and Aldrien came to stand beside her in hers.
They talked through what they remembered from the wedding, the crack in the bowl, the wind, the moment everything had gone white before they’d woken up on the floor as each other.
Somewhere in the middle of comparing memories, their hands met over the surface of the stone.
Neither pulled away.
Hazel looked at him, at her own face carrying an expression she’d never worn herself, soft in a way that felt strange to witness from the outside.
There was something disorienting about seeing herself reflected back through the person she’d spent years despising, like looking into a mirror that showed her something truer than her actual reflection ever had.
“You look different when you’re not trying to fight me,” Aldrien said quietly.
“Maybe you look different when you’re not trying to win,” Hazel answered.
She noticed, not long after, that he was still shifting slightly, trying to hide the discomfort that had been bothering him since that morning.
Instead of teasing him the way she might have a few days ago, she reached over and adjusted the fabric of his collar, easing it away from where it had been rubbing uncomfortably.
He looked at her, surprised.
“You’re not making fun of me.”
“You’ve suffered enough,” she said, a small smile pulling at her mouth.
Something in his expression shifted at that, gentler than she was used to seeing from him, and for a moment neither of them moved, the space between them smaller than either had intended.
That was when the moonstone flared again, brighter this time, the markings along its surface lighting up in a pattern neither of them had noticed before.
A faint line appeared across the stone, thin and glowing, stretching outward in a direction that hadn’t been visible a moment earlier.
It pointed, unmistakably, toward the distant shape of the Veiled Mountains rising beyond the valley’s edge.
Hazel traced the line with her eyes, understanding settling over her slowly.
“The Priestess isn’t here.”
Aldrien looked toward the mountains, his expression sobering.
“Then that’s where we’re going.”
Garrick returned not long after, and the moment he stepped through the vines and saw the stone still glowing faintly, his expression changed entirely, something wary creeping into his features.
“What did you do?” he asked.
Hazel and Aldrien exchanged a look, because neither of them had done anything at all.
The shrine had responded on its own, reaching toward them the same way it had at the wedding, without either of them asking it to.
Somewhere deep beyond the valley, carried on the wind, a wolf howled long into the fading light, and none of them moved until the sound had completely faded away.