The wind caught us as we tumbled through the last of the portal’s collapse. My lungs seized as I hit the ground on my back. Grass cushioned part of the fall, but not enough to stop the ache that rolled up my spine. Jax landed half beside me, half on top of me, breathless but alive. That was all I cared about.
A soft glow spread across the valley. At first I thought I was seeing stars. Then the light grew brighter. Warmer. Real.
Moonlight poured down like a river from the sky, washing over the world in a silver flood that made everything shimmer. Trees. Stones. Wolves. My skin. It felt like every part of the earth exhaled at once, releasing a breath it had been holding through the entire collapse.
We lay there for a moment, catching our breath as the last vibrations of the collapsing Maw
