Chapter #2 - The Moon's Mark

When I could finally breathe again, the air felt wrong.

Too sharp. Too alive.

Every inhale burned like I was drawing light instead of oxygen. My skin still throbbed where the symbol had branded itself with a crescent of molten silver just below my collarbone, pulsing faintly like a second heartbeat.

The four men circled me warily, all shadows and tension.

The one with the golden eyes is the one who’d grabbed my wrist and crouched low beside me, his expression unreadable. “You need to control it before it burns through you.”

“I don’t even know what it is!”

His jaw tightened. “Moonfire. The oldest magic there is.”

The blond man and the laughing one from before had whistled softly and folded his arms. “Looks like she didn’t just cross the veil by accident. The mark chose her.”

“Shut it, Kian,” the gold-eyed man growled.

Kian grinned, unbothered. “I’m just saying, Cael, you can’t fight prophecy. The girl’s glowing like the moons themselves.”

The quiet one with violet eyes said nothing. His gaze lingered on me a second too long, sharp and studying, before shifting toward the woods again. The fourth was the one cloaked in darkness and stood at the tree line, his presence more felt than seen, like the night itself was listening through him.

I tried to stand, but my legs shook. The ground beneath me still hummed with that strange silver current. “What do you mean the mark chose me? I didn’t choose any of this.”

Cael because apparently that was his name and had looked at me like I was a puzzle he didn’t want to solve. “You touched the veil. The veil touched back.”

“Fantastic,” I muttered. “And that means…?”

Kian smirked. “It means congratulations, you’re now half myth, half disaster.”

“Enough.” Cael shot him a glare sharp enough to silence thunder.

Then he turned back to me. “If the Moon marked you, the Riftborn will come again but stronger next time. We need to move.”

“Move where?”

“Somewhere they can’t find you.”

“I don’t even know who they are!”

He hesitated with the first sign that maybe he didn’t have all the answers either. “You will. If you live long enough.”

Before I could argue, a howl cut through the air with a deep and resonant, echoing from somewhere far and near all at once.

The violet-eyed one lifted his head. “They’re regrouping.”

“Then we go,” Cael ordered.

Kian sighed dramatically. “You’re no fun anymore, Alpha.” But he drew a dagger from his belt anyway and the blade shimmered like moonlight frozen solid.

“Alpha?” I repeated, blinking.

Cael’s gold eyes flicked to me. “Later.”

Kian grinned. “Means he’s bossy.”

“Means I keep idiots like you alive,” Cael shot back.

The forest trembled again with the silver light in the soil dimming and brightening like a pulse. The night itself seemed to shift, the stars above moving slower than they should.

Cael stepped closer. “Stay with me.”

I wanted to ask why me? and why this, why now but the air changed again before I could. The scent of ozone and blood hit first. Then the shadows began to crawl.

Dozens of them.

The Riftborn.

Shapes of bone and smoke twisting out of the mist, moving in jerks and spasms, their faces splitting into things that were once human.

Kian muttered, “Guess round two starts early.”

The violet-eyed one drew a curved blade from his back. “They’re drawn to her mark.”

“I noticed,” I said through gritted teeth.

Cael’s hands began to glow again, that same molten gold. “Elara please focus on the mark. Try to quiet it.”

“I don’t know how!”

“Then feel it.” His tone softened, just slightly. “The Moonfire answers emotion, not reason. Control it, or it controls you.”

I closed my eyes. Tried to breathe.

Tried to find something in the chaos that was mine.

The mark pulsed faster, syncing to my heartbeat. I thought of the cold foster house. The porch. The way no one ever stayed. The ache of being unseen.

And then I thought of the voice with that voice in the lake that had said Come home.

The mark flared.

Light burst from my skin, a violent bloom of silver and white. The first of the Riftborn screamed and disintegrated where the light touched them. The others reeled back, hissing.

When it faded, I was on my knees again, shaking. The men stared like I’d just torn open the sky.

Kian let out a low whistle. “Not bad for a first day dead.”

“Dead?”

Cael shot him another look but darker this time. “You crossed the veil. You don’t belong to the human world anymore.”

“I didn’t ask to stop belonging.”

“No one ever does.” His voice was quiet now.

The violet-eyed one spoke, his tone low and careful. “We should take her to the Sanctum before the Moon fully rises.”

“Agreed,” said the one wrapped in darkness but his voice like velvet and thunder, deep enough that I felt it in my bones.

Cael nodded once. “Then we move.”

Kian looked at me with a mischievous smile. “Welcome to the Lumenwild, Moonfire. Try not to die before dawn.”

He started ahead, blades flashing. The others followed, melting into the glowing woods like they’d done this a thousand times.

Cael lingered a moment longer, his hand hovering near my shoulder but not quite touching.

“Stay close,” he said. “The veil takes more than it gives. Don’t let it take you.”

I swallowed hard and followed.

Behind us, the lake shimmered faintly in the distance, a mirror that no longer reflected anything at all.

And above, the two moons hung side by side with one silver, one bleeding red and was watching like open eyes that never blinked.