Blood of The Shattered Moon

They say I was born screaming under a double eclipse, when both moons bled across the sky and the Core Sea turned black as a wound. My mother never spoke of that night, but I've seen the fear in her eyes every time the moons align—like she's watching a prophecy unfold that she's powerless to stop.

I am Sevia of Eclipsehaven, and I have been haunted all my life.

Not by ghosts or spirits, though the villagers whisper that I might as well be one myself. No, my haunting is far more intimate than that. It comes in the form of dreams so vivid they taste real, dreams that bleed silver into my waking hours and leave me gasping for air when I wake. Dreams of him.

The stranger with eyes like molten moonlight.

He has no name in my dreams—or if he does, he's never given it to me. He simply is, as inevitable as the tide, as constant as the luminous glow that bathes Eclipsehaven even in the deepest hours of night. I've seen him every night for as long as I can remember, standing at the edge of my consciousness like a shadow waiting to be given form.

And he always, always whispers my name.

"Sevia."

Just that. Just my name, shaped by lips I can never quite see clearly, spoken in a voice that makes my skin prickle with something between terror and longing. It sounds like a vow. It sounds like a warning. Sometimes, in the trembling moments between sleep and waking, it sounds like a promise I'm not sure I want him to keep.

I'm twenty-one years old, and I've never been touched by a man. Not truly. Not in the way the village girls giggle about when they think I'm not listening, when they share stories of stolen kisses behind the moonwood trees or fumbling hands in the dark corners of the festival tents. They look at me differently—they always have. Like I'm something fragile and dangerous all at once, a girl made of glass and thorns.

Maybe they're right to fear me.

After all, my dreams don't stay contained in sleep. They leak.

It started when I was seven. I dreamed of silver rain falling on Eclipsehaven, and when I woke, the entire village was drenched in water that glowed like starlight. The elders called it a blessing from Irethiel, the First Moon. But my mother knew better. I saw it in the way she pulled me close and whispered, "Never tell them it was you. Never."

I've been keeping that secret ever since.

Eclipsehaven is beautiful in a haunted, ethereal way that makes it feel like a place caught between worlds. The houses are carved from hollowed moonwood trees, their trunks wide as cottages and veined with bioluminescent sap that pulses faintly blue-white in the darkness. Even our streets glow. Even our beaches—black sand kissed by the iridescent tide of the Core Sea—seem to shimmer with an otherworldly light.

There is no true darkness here. The elders say that Irethiel herself blessed our shores, that the First Moon watches over us with her all-seeing eye. But I think it's something else. I think Eclipsehaven is a place where the veil between the waking world and the dreaming is thin as mist, and sometimes, things slip through.

Things like me.

I stand at the edge of the black-sand beach now, my bare feet sinking into the cool grains as the Core Sea stretches before me like a living mirror. The water glows faintly, pulsing with light that seems to come from somewhere deep below—somewhere ancient and unknowable. I've been warned all my life never to stare too long into the Core Sea. They say it devours you, piece by piece, until there's nothing left but light and longing.

But I've always been drawn to it.

Maybe because I'm already halfway devoured.

The wind tugs at my dark hair, whipping strands across my face as I close my eyes and breathe in the salt-and-magic scent of the shore. The moons are full tonight—both of them. Irethiel's pale silver face and Vorrak's deeper, blood-tinged glow. They hang in the sky like two unblinking eyes, watching. Always watching.

And tonight, I feel something different.

A pull. A tug deep in my chest, like an invisible thread being drawn taut. It's not painful, but it's insistent, and it makes my heart race in a way that feels almost… hungry. I press a hand to my sternum, feeling the rapid thud of my pulse beneath my palm.

"Sevia."

The voice is so close I gasp and spin around, expecting to see someone standing behind me. But there's no one. Just the empty beach and the glowing forest beyond, its silver leaves rustling in the wind like whispered secrets.

I'm alone.

But I don't feel alone.

I never do.

The dreams have been getting worse lately. More vivid. More real. Last night, I could have sworn I felt his breath on my neck, warm and impossibly close. I woke with my heart pounding and my skin flushed, and for one disorienting moment, I couldn't tell if I was still dreaming or not.

I'm starting to suspect that the line between the two is thinner than I thought.

"Sevia!"

This time, the voice is real—sharp and exasperated and entirely too familiar. I turn to see my mother standing at the edge of the beach, her arms crossed over her chest and her silver eyes narrowed in disapproval. She's a small woman, barely reaching my shoulder, but she has the presence of someone far larger. Her hair, once as dark as mine, is now streaked with white, and the lines around her eyes have deepened in the past year.

She looks tired. She always looks tired when she looks at me.

"You shouldn't be out here alone," she says, her voice clipped. "Especially not tonight."

"Why not?" I ask, though I already know the answer. I can feel it in the air, in the way the moons seem to press down on the world with a weight that makes it hard to breathe. "What's so special about tonight?"

My mother's expression tightens. "The Bloodmoon rises in three days. You know what that means."

I do. Every forty days, Vorrak's face burns brighter, and the night becomes a hunting ground for things that should stay hidden. The cursed, the moonbound, the creatures that thrive on desire and violence. It's a night when the smart stay indoors with their doors locked and their prayers whispered to Irethiel for protection.

But I've never been particularly smart.

"I'll be fine," I say, brushing past her toward the path that leads back into the village. "I'm always fine."

"You're not fine, Sevia." Her hand catches my arm, her grip firm. "You're getting worse. The elders are starting to notice. If they realize what you are—"

"What I am?" I pull free, my voice sharper than I intend. "And what exactly am I, Mother? You've never told me. You've never explained why I'm like this, why I dream the way I do, why the villagers look at me like I'm some kind of curse walking on two legs."

She flinches, and I immediately regret my tone. But I don't take it back. I'm tired of secrets. Tired of being treated like something fragile and dangerous and wrong.

"You were born under the twin eclipse," she says quietly, her gaze dropping to the sand. "That alone would have marked you. But your father…" She trails off, her jaw tightening. "Your father had the same gift. The same curse. Dreams that became real. Visions that bled into the world. And look what happened to him."

My father. The man I barely remember. He vanished when I was five, walking into the Core Sea one night and never coming back. The villagers say he went mad, that he saw something in the water that unmade him. My mother has never spoken of it, not in all the years since.

"What did he see?" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

She doesn't answer. She just shakes her head and turns away, her shoulders slumped in defeat. "Come inside. Please. It's not safe out here."

But I don't follow her. Not yet.

Because as I stand there on the black-sand beach with the twin moons burning overhead, I feel it again—that pull, that hunger. And this time, it's accompanied by something else.

A whisper on the wind, so faint I almost miss it.

"Soon."

I shiver, wrapping my arms around myself as I stare out at the glowing expanse of the Core Sea. Somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, something is waiting. I can feel it. And deep down, in a part of me I don't want to acknowledge, I know that I'm waiting for it, too.

Waiting for him.

The stranger from my dreams.

The one who whispers my name like a promise.

The one who might be my salvation.

Or my ruin.

I dream of him again that night.

But this time, the dream is different. Sharper. More real.

I'm standing in a place I don't recognize—a vast, shadowed hall lit by torches that burn with silver flames. The walls are carved from black stone, and the air tastes of smoke and something darker, something that makes my pulse quicken and my breath catch.

And he's there.

He's always there.

But for the first time, I can see him clearly.

He stands at the far end of the hall, his back to me, and even from this distance, I can tell he's tall—taller than any man in Eclipsehaven, with broad shoulders and a predator's grace. His hair is dark, almost black, and it falls just past his shoulders in a way that makes me want to reach out and touch it, to see if it's as soft as it looks.

He turns, and my breath stops.

His face is angular, all sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw shadowed with stubble. His lips are full and curved in a way that's both cruel and devastatingly beautiful. But it's his eyes that undo me.

Silver. Molten silver, glowing faintly in the dim light. They pin me in place, and I feel the weight of his gaze like a physical thing, pressing down on me, claiming me.

"Sevia."

The way he says my name—low and rough and edged with something dark—makes heat coil low in my belly. I take a step back instinctively, my heart pounding, but he moves forward, closing the distance between us with a fluid, unhurried stride.

"You can't run from me," he says, and his voice is like smoke and silk, wrapping around me. "Not here. Not in this place."

"Who are you?" I manage to ask, though my voice comes out breathless and shaky.

He doesn't answer. He just reaches out, his hand hovering inches from my face, and I can see the conflict in his expression—hunger warring with restraint, desire tangled with something that looks almost like fear.

"I shouldn't touch you," he murmurs, more to himself than to me. "If I do…"

"If you do, what?" I whisper.

His eyes flare brighter, and for a moment, I see something else behind them—something wild and dangerous and barely contained. Shadows ripple around him, dark and writhing, and I realize with a jolt that they're not separate from him. They're part of him.

"If I touch you," he says slowly, his gaze locked on mine, "I won't be able to stop."

The words should terrify me. They should send me running, should wake me screaming from this dream.

But instead, I find myself leaning forward, drawn to him like a moth to a flame.

"Then don't stop," I hear myself say.

His expression shifts—something raw and almost pained crossing his features. And then, before I can take another breath, his hand cups my face, his palm warm against my skin, his thumb brushing over my cheekbone in a touch so gentle it makes my chest ache.

The moment his skin meets mine, the world fractures.

I feel it—a surge of power so intense it steals the air from my lungs. Silver light explodes around us, and I hear him groan, a sound that's equal parts agony and relief. His other hand tangles in my hair, pulling me closer, and I can feel the barely leashed violence in the way he holds me, like he's fighting every instinct to devour me whole.

"You're real," he breathes, his forehead pressed against mine. "Gods, you're real."

"So are you," I whisper back, my hands fisting in the front of his shirt—dark fabric that feels like leather and shadow combined.

And then he kisses me.

It's not gentle. It's not soft. It's a claiming, fierce and desperate and edged with something that tastes like possession. His mouth moves over mine with a hunger that makes my knees weak, and I kiss him back just as fiercely, pouring every night of longing, every year of loneliness into the press of my lips against his.

He makes a low sound in the back of his throat, and the shadows around us surge, wrapping around my body like a second skin. I should be afraid. I should pull away.

But I don't.

Because for the first time in my life, I don't feel haunted.

I feel alive.

When he finally pulls back, we're both breathing hard, and his eyes are blazing with an intensity that makes my entire body flush with heat.

"This is dangerous," he says, his voice rough. "We're dangerous."

"I know," I whisper.

"If they find out—"

"I don't care."

A smile curves his lips—dark and edged with something that's almost sad. "You will."

And then, like every dream before it, the world begins to dissolve. I feel him slipping away, feel the warmth of his touch fading, and I reach for him desperately, my fingers grasping at nothing.

"Wait," I cry out. "I don't even know your name—"

He's already fading, his form becoming translucent, but I hear his answer, whispered like a secret pressed into my soul.

"Kael."

I wake with a gasp, my heart racing and my lips tingling as if the kiss was real. As if he was real.

And as I press my fingers to my mouth, I realize with a jolt of terror and wonder that I can still taste him.

Smoke. Shadows. And something darker.

Something that feels like fate.