Chapitre 6

In the Hollow One’s temple, we found it; a silver mirror that whispered. Each time I looked, I saw a different version of myself.

One wore a crown.

One held a child.

One was devouring a pack.

And one… was married to Lira.

The Oracle broke her silence.

“You weren’t born under this sky,” she said.

“What does that mean?” I snapped.

She held up my blood in moonlight.

It shimmered like stars.

“You were born under the Ninth Moon. Not this realm. Not this timeline. That’s why they fear you.”

I found him in the ruins. His armor dented. His hand shaking.

“There were children inside,” he whispered.

I touched his shoulder. He flinched.

“They were mine, Saelaith.”

He didn’t mean children by blood. He meant his wolves. And the guilt was killing him.

He kissed me before he said it.

“I told them where you were.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to save you,” he said.

“They promised they’d spare the Eclipse.”

“They lied,” I said.

And his face broke like glass.

Because deep down, he knew.

It did not speak. It only breathed. And when it breathed, wolves died in their sleep. Hearts stopped.

Dreams curdled.

One look into its mouth… and I saw my own corpse rotting in a cradle. It wanted me unborn.

Unmade. And it was getting stronger.

I went into the sanctuary. The Moonstone altar glowed.

I waited.

I bled.

I screamed her name.

Nothing came.

The Moon Goddess, my last hope, did not speak. Only the Hollow One’s voice echoed:

“She left you long ago.”

I saw it with my own eyes.

The bite.

The blood.

The bond.

He marked the General’s daughter.

A political move.

A power move.

A betrayal.

He didn’t see me watching, didn’t hear my heart snap, but now he will hear me rise.

The Hollow One moved north. Where my Eclipse wolves waited. And it left no tracks.

Only ashes.

Only red skies.

Only one survivor: Seris.

She walked back alone, barefoot, holding her own heart in her hands.

“Tell Saelaith,” she said.

“They’re all gone.”

I screamed in the old tongue. The one I wasn’t taught. Something broke inside me. The tether to Vaeron, the soul-string of our bond...

Snapped.

Painless.

Silent.

Clean.

I didn’t cry. Because I was finally free.

That night, I didn’t sleep. I wrote the names of my fallen, swallowed moonstone ash, stood naked before the Hollow One.

“You want a vessel?” I said.

“I want revenge.”

It did not nod. It only entered me. And thus was born the Shadow Luna.

They crawled from the ruins. Fur like soot. Eyes like dying stars. Not alive. Not dead. Drawn only to me.

One licked my hand. Its tongue was fire.

“My Luna,” it rasped.

I had made my own pack. And they would obey no one else.

She waited by the blood tree. Still loyal. Still afraid. I stepped from the shadows.

Lira gasped.

“What have you done?”

“What no Luna dared.”

She looked behind me. At the ash-wolves. At my glowing hands. And for the first time, she bowed.

The Elders summoned me. They expected shame. I wore bones. I spoke only once.

“I am no one’s wife.”

They spat, prayed, tried to burn me. The flames bent away. The fire knew me now. And they named me demon.

He slept in the old den. His mate beside him. But in his dreams, he was chained to a cliff, watching Saelaith rise over the moon and the moon bled silver.

Her voice said:

“I don’t need your love anymore.”

He wept.

I gave them a choice. Bow or burn. The traitor Alpha spat at my feet.

“I bow to no witch.”

I snapped my fingers. His lungs turned to smoke. His wolves fled screaming. My ash-wolves feasted.

And I said,

“Bring me the next name.”