The crack widened beneath our feet, a jagged scar splitting the earth. From its depths, black mist rose, thick as ink, curling around my legs, chilling my skin to the bone. Kael yanked me back, but the ground kept crumbling, dragging us toward the chasm. “Elara—hold on!” he shouted, his grip bruising, desperate. I threw my power into the earth, trying to seal the rift, but the void laughed at my magic. The black mist coiled higher, whispering promises I refused to hear. Join us. Free yourself. Feed the darkness. A clawed hand emerged from the crack — skeletal, wrapped in shadow, with fingers longer than any human’s. Another followed. And then the head of the thing that crawled out. It had no face. Only a hollow void where eyes should’ve been, and a mouth that split its head open in a grin too wide, too sharp. The Moon God stepped forward, but the creature hissed, and the god recoiled. “This should not be,” the Moon God said, voice shaken. “The void was sealed long ago.” Kael
The world slowed. Silver flame roared toward me from the god’s hands, and Damon’s twisted, shadowed figure lunged, his claws hungry for blood. I could taste the magic in the air — sharp like lightning, bitter like ash. I was out of strength. I should have fallen. But somewhere, deep inside where the Luna Star pulsed, I found one last spark. Kael’s heartbeat echoed in my bond. Weak. Fading. But there. The pack. My family. Myself. I wouldn’t fall. I raised my hands, and the Luna Star’s light answered, not as a blast, but as a shield. A dome of shimmering white formed around me, humming with power older than the gods. Damon’s claws struck it first, and he recoiled, hissing, as smoke rose from his fingers. The silver god’s flames slammed into it next, crackling and burning, trying to pierce the barrier. The heat scorched my skin even through the magic, and I felt the strain tearing at me, ripping through every nerve. “You cannot win,” the god’s voice boomed. “You don’t know me,”
The ground trembled as the silver-flamed figure descended, the sky above still torn open like a wound that wouldn’t close. I couldn’t move. Not because of fear—though gods knew I felt it—but because the sheer power radiating from the being before me froze the air, turned my bones to ice. Kael staggered, his wolf form crouched low, ears flattened, a growl rumbling deep in his throat. Damon stared, his monstrous face twisted in a snarl, as if even he hadn’t expected this. The god landed, silver fire crackling at its feet, and raised its gaze—two eyes like twin stars burning in the night. “Elara,” the voice echoed, deeper than thunder, older than time itself. “Luna of the Star. You have tampered with the balance.” I forced myself to stand straighter, the Luna Star’s light pulsing wildly in my chest. “The balance was shattered the moment he—” I pointed at Damon, “—let the dark god inside him!” The silver god tilted its head, studying me like a curious child might study a wounded b
The darkness wasn’t empty. It pulsed. It breathed. Like I’d been dragged into the chest of some ancient beast, and all I could hear was the pounding of its monstrous heart. “Ilara?” I called out, my voice barely a whisper against the suffocating black. No answer. Kael? Silence. Panic surged up my throat—but I forced it down. No. Not now. Not when everything balanced on the edge of a blade. The Luna Star’s light still flickered in my chest—small, but alive. I focused on it, pulling it close, feeding it my will, my rage, my hope. Slowly, the darkness began to peel back. Shapes emerged. The battlefield was unrecognizable. Craters gouged the earth, fires burned where stars had fallen, and the air crackled with wild magic. Kael lay slumped near a shattered boulder, his wolf form bruised, bleeding—but alive. His chest rose and fell, shallow but steady. “Elara,” he rasped, shifting painfully back to his human form, silver eyes dazed but fierce. “You’re… okay?” I nodded, though m
Light consumed everything. It wasn’t warm, like moonlight. It wasn’t comforting, like the glow of a fire. It was blinding. A raw, searing force that burned through my skin, my bones—through me. Like I’d become nothing but energy, scattered across the void. For a heartbeat, I didn’t know who I was. Then I heard him. Kael. His voice, ragged and fierce, cut through the storm: Elara. Hold on. Don’t let go. I clawed at the bond, at the thread that tethered me to him, to this world. My magic surged wildly in response, trying to anchor me as the altar’s explosion tore the battlefield apart. When the light finally faded, I was on my knees, gasping for breath, the ground cracked and scorched around me. The altar was gone—obliterated. The god’s form flickered like a broken shadow in the sky, howling in fury. And Ilara— Ilara stood across from me, her blade lowered, helm shattered, face pale as death. Her eyes—so much like mine, but haunted—were wide with disbelief. “You weren’t suppos
The world stood still. Kael froze, his body coiled tight as a bowstring, breath ragged from battle. I could feel his confusion, his rage, his desperation pounding through the bond. The god-slayer—this figure of myth—stood motionless, blade leveled at my heart, armor gleaming like forged moonlight. The runes across the sword shimmered with lethal promise, as if the weapon itself hungered for my blood. “Who are you?” Kael growled, stepping between me and the blade. The god-slayer didn’t answer. But the fused creature let out a twisted laugh, its body still crackling with dark magic. “You see now, little Luna?” it sneered. “There is no savior coming. There never was. The gods have chosen their champion—and it isn’t you.” “No,” I whispered, heart hammering. “That’s not possible.” I was supposed to be the one to end this. The Luna Star. The chosen. The rebellion. Every vision, every prophecy—they couldn’t all have been lies. Could they? The god’s presence darkened the sky, its rag