Fractured

Cracks in the Moonlight

The world, as Selene knew it, was woven from moonlight and silence. Her domain, the Silverwood stretched vast and eternal, a cathedral of ancient trees draped in shimmering dew. Their branches arched like skeletal fingers, forever clawing toward the perpetually twilight sky. The air itself seemed made of sighs, heavy with the perfume of moss and moonpetal blossoms, a quiet fragrance that clung to skin like memory.

Selene belonged to this hush. She was a creature of stillness, a Moon Witch whose solitude had become as familiar to her as the pale stone of her ritual circles. Some nights, she believed she had been born for silence itself—her every breath, her every spell an echo of the lunar rhythm that pulsed cold and silver through her veins. Her magic had always been soft, patient, coaxing flowers from sleep, soothing wild creatures, weaving protection into the bones of the forest. A lullaby of peace.

But tonight, the song faltered.

The melody—her melody—broke into a shriek, raw and jagged, as though the moon itself screamed through her blood.

It began with a tremor. Subtle at first, like the hush before a storm, a faint dissonance in the air that set the dew trembling on leaves. Selene knelt in her grove, tending to a cluster of moonpetals. Their blossoms were shy things, unfurling only beneath lunar light, their petals glowing pearlescent white. Her fingers brushed their cool edges, silver magic streaming gently from her skin to wake them. Normally the spell came as easily as breath, but tonight the light sputtered. The glow dimmed, stuttering as though the moon itself had faltered.

A chill stole across her arms—not the natural coolness of her magic, but something foreign, invasive. Gooseflesh rippled along her skin, her heartbeat stuttering. She drew in a breath that caught in her throat like a snared bird.

Then the vision struck.

It was not foresight as she knew it, not the drifting whispers of possibility that sometimes stirred her dreams. It was a cataclysm. A psychic rending that tore through her consciousness like a comet impact, ripping her from her grove, from her body, from the fragile safety of the world she thought she knew.

The Veil appeared before her.

She had always known it existed, that shimmering, unseen barrier dividing Lunaris, her realm, from the endless planes beyond. It was the invisible curtain that allowed witches to draw from magic without being devoured by it, the threshold of dream and waking, spirit and flesh. To most witches, the Veil was myth, more believed in than seen. But to Selene, its hum had been constant all her life, woven through every vision, every trance. It was her anchor. Her tether.

Now she saw it split.

The Veil stretched across her sight like obsidian glass, vast and unending. And across its surface, cracks spiderwebbed—thin at first, then deep, branching like veins of lightning. From those fractures spilled light. Not moonlight, not the gentle glow that bathed the Silverwood, but something harsher. Malevolent. Pulsing with a rhythm like a diseased heart.

It burned her eyes though it had no heat. It was a light of emptiness, a void that seared not flesh but soul. It whispered of decay, of unraveling, of hunger vast enough to consume everything she loved.

She staggered in the vision, though her body knelt miles away.

And then came sensation.

The break was not only seen, but felt. It shuddered through her bones, her blood, the lunar tether in her chest snapping and fraying. Her magic, once steady as tides, vibrated wildly, a frantic, discordant thrum. The Veil was not simply breaking—it was demanding something. Something from her.

Selene gasped, pressing a hand to her sternum, but the vision gave her no mercy. It dragged her deeper.

In the cracks of the Veil, she saw figures. Shadows first, then clearer: a woman of earth, wild-eyed, hair tangled with leaves and bone charms, her body slick with blood and sweat. Another—no, a man—storm-soaked, salt dripping from his hair, waves breaking against his skin as if the ocean itself claimed him. Their faces were unknown to her, yet her body recognized them with a lurching, terrifying intimacy.

They reached for her.

And when their hands touched hers, the fractures flared open wider.

The vision overwhelmed her senses. She felt their heat against her, their breath mingling with hers, and the flare of magic that followed was not gentle. It was raw. Erotic. Unforgiving. Her body arched against nothing and everything, her veins burning as though flooded with fire and salt and root. She cried out—not in pain, not in pleasure, but in a shattering blend of both that left her trembling in the dirt of her grove.

The Veil screamed.

Her solitude, her carefully cultivated silence, fractured with it. The life she had woven of moonlight and solitude unraveled in a single moment. She saw her ancestors—pale, silver-eyed witches stretching back to the dawn—turn their faces away as if ashamed, as if they knew what the prophecy would demand.

When the vision finally loosened its hold, Selene collapsed among the moonpetals. Their blossoms had all closed, refusing the poisoned light that now pulsed faintly even through her skin.

She lay gasping, her body slick with sweat, hair clinging to her damp face.

Above, the twilight sky had deepened to near-black, stars trembling faintly against the wounded moon.

Her heart thundered. The Silverwood no longer felt safe, no longer hers. She could feel the cracks spreading, the Veil tugging at her even now, demanding, warning. The two strangers’ faces burned behind her eyes, fierce and inevitable.

The world was unraveling. And Selene knew—bone-deep, soul-deep—that her peace was over.

That soon she would have to find them.

The Forest Witch.