Selene POV
The price of balance came due in the form of me.
I did not speak the word aloud, but it settled into my bones with quiet certainty, heavier than fear and sharper than prophecy. I felt it the moment the thought finished forming, as though the world itself had been waiting for me to acknowledge it, waiting for my understanding to cross an invisible threshold. The convergence did not demand blood in the way mortals understood sacrifice, nor did it hunger for death alone. It demanded presence. It demanded endurance. It demanded a living axis upon which opposing forces could turn without shattering the world entirely.
It demanded someone who could stand at the center and remain standing.
