LEGEND OF THE SLAIN LUNA

✦LANA / ISOLDE'S POV✦

Years ago, before fear swallowed the kingdom whole, Elarion thrived beneath the blessing of moonlight magic, its rivers glowing silver at night while enormous crystal towers stood proudly beneath the heavens like sacred monuments built for the Moon Goddess herself. During those years, the royal bloodline ruled beside creatures the world once considered divine protectors, massive Crystal Wolves whose bodies carried traces of moonlight within their translucent fur and glowing eyes, intelligent beings spiritually bound to the Moonborn bloodline for centuries beyond memory.

The kingdom celebrated them once.

Children ran fearlessly beside them through palace halls while nobles bowed their heads respectfully whenever the wolves passed, believing their existence alone kept darkness away from Elarion. Every generation of the royal family grew alongside them beneath ancient laws older than the kingdom itself, and during the Night of Ascension, a sacred ceremony held beneath the pink moon to celebrate the birth of the kingdom’s future heirs, the Crystal Wolves walked proudly beside the royal family one final time without knowing death already waited for them inside the palace walls.

By then, fear had already poisoned the hearts of men.

The Crystal Wolves had become too powerful, too feared, too impossible to control, their strength surpassing every living creature in existence until whispers slowly spread through the kingdom that no throne could ever truly rule while such beings still roamed the earth freely. The king listened to those fears while the royal council fed them further, and beneath the beauty of celebration and music, betrayal quietly took root inside Elarion.

That night, while the kingdom danced beneath silver lanterns and moonfire torches, the sacred Crystal Lake hidden within the palace grounds was poisoned secretly by the king and his council before the wolves arrived to drink from it after the ceremony ended.

The first wolf collapsed moments later.

Then another followed. And another.

Agonized cries tore violently across the palace grounds as moonlit fur blackened from corruption while blood spilled across the once sacred waters, panic erupting instantly among the wolves as some died screaming while others transformed violently, consumed completely by madness. Soldiers hidden throughout the palace attacked while terrified nobles fled through the chaos, their screams echoing endlessly beneath the moon as the massacre consumed Elarion in bloodshed.

But among the dying wolves stood one creature even the kingdom feared naming aloud.

Kael.

The last Crystal Wolf born beneath the Blood Moon and the strongest among them all.

He watched his kind slaughtered before his eyes while the sacred lake darkened with blood and corpses, and when the king ordered his soldiers to ensure not a single wolf survived the massacre, Kael answered with unimaginable fury. Bodies littered the palace grounds beneath his claws as soldiers pursuing him were ripped apart mercilessly one after another until the entire kingdom drowned in terror beneath his wrath, yet even with hundreds hunting him across Elarion, Kael disappeared beyond the forbidden northern forest before dawn arrived.

No one saw him again.

Before the final surviving wolves vanished completely, the Moon Priestess stood before the kingdom beneath the shattered temple of the Moon Goddess and cursed the royal bloodline for its betrayal while binding Kael beneath ancient lunar law.

“The wolf shall not awaken until the Moonborn bears her mark beneath the pink moon, and when the last Crystal Wolf returns, the kingdom shall drown in blood and moonfire.”

After that night, Elarion began dying slowly.

The moonlight blessing faded from the kingdom generation after generation while crops failed, rivers dried, creatures vanished, and the once glorious kingdom decayed into the shadow of what it had once been. Crystal Wolves became nothing more than terrifying legends whispered to children before sleep, and the truth behind the massacre disappeared alongside time until eventually nobody remembered the royal family had been responsible for destroying them at all.