MasukLila’s POVI didn’t tell them.As I lay in that blood-soaked bed, consciousness swimming back in fits and starts over the hours following the birth, I kept the Moon Goddess’s truth to myself. The knowledge that we wouldn’t actually be hiding here for the full l five years, that her plan had always been different, that the long isolation was a decoy for her brother to chase while she enacted something else entirely.I should have told Marcus and Joan becaus edeserved to know. But something made me hesitate. Maybe it was exhaustion. Or rather it was fear that speaking it aloud would make it real. Or maybe, deep down, I didn’t fully understand what the goddess’s true plan was yet.So I stayed silent about the vision, about the revelation that had triggered my early labor. And I focused instead on the overwhelming reality of being a new mother to two children who defied every rule I’d ever known about babies.The first week was the harde
Author’s POVThree minutes.It’s been three minutes of Lila pushing with everything left in her tired body. It’s been three minutes of Marcus coaching her through each breath, each contraction, each impossible moment. While Joan held baby Ari, whose white light pulsed in rhythm with her mother’s labored breathing, as if the firstborn was somehow lending her strength to help her twin arrive.The three minutes felt like an eternity for Lila, and then…The second baby emerged with a rush, he was larger than his sister, his small body sliding into Marcus’s waiting hands as morning light flooded through the window and illuminated the scene with golden radiance.For one breathless moment, everything was silent.No cry just like his sister.But unlike Ari’s immediate white glow, this baby seemed to draw the light inward, absorbing it rather than radiating it. His skin was darker than his sister’s, his features more define
Author’s POVThe labor stretched into the darkest hours of the night, each minute feeling like an eternity. It's been six hours of agony, of Lila’s screams echoing through the isolated ranch house, of Marcus’s steady commands and Joan’s desperate attempts to help without using magic that would only make things worse.This wasn’t normal childbirth, the twins weren’t just being born. They were fighting their way into existence, with their divine powers clashing against the mortal limitations of Lila’s body. Every contraction brought waves of supernatural energy that made the air itself crackle with electricity.Around the fourth hour, when Lila thought she might actually die despite Eryndra’s assurances, when the pain had become so overwhelming that she could barely draw breath, it happened.Her power surged.It wasn’t Eryndra’s power or the twins' power. It was Lila’s power- all the elemental abilities she’d been learning to control,
Moon Goddess’s POVFrom her realm beyond the mortal plane, where starlight sat together like pools of liquid silver and time moved as fluid as thought, the Moon Goddess watched. Her attention had been fixed on the small ranch house in Montana since the moment Lila and her companions had crossed its threshold. “It is time,” she murmured, her voice resonating through the celestial realm like a bell that only the divine could hear. Her brother, the Eclipse King, had been growing bolder. His forces had nearly captured Lila twice in one day, the first time was on campus, and then during the escape. If she allowed the pattern to continue, if she let Lila hide for five years as planned, her brother would find them. He would find a way around it. He always did. He was patient, methodical, and he had centuries of practice hunting her chosen ones. No. Five years was too long. The twins needed to be born now,
Lila’s POVIt was late in the night now, and the darkness beyond the car was absolute although they were occasionally broken by farmhouse lights in the distance.We’d been driving for hours, first we went through Oregon, then crossing into Idaho, and now deep into rural Montana. Marcus hadn’t stopped except for gas, and even then he’d made us stay in the car with the engine running, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble.I sat in the backseat now, having switched places with Joan somewhere around the Idaho border. My swollen stomach made the cramped space even more uncomfortable, but Joan insisted she needed to be able to monitor me and the twins more closely. Occasionally her hands would rest lightly on my stomach, warm pulses of magic flowing through the contact as she constantly checked our vital signs.“Heart rate’s still elevated,” Joan murmured, more to herself than to me. “Yours and theirs. Lila, you need to try to calm
Lila’s POVJoan found the hidden release and the bookshelf swung open, revealing a dark passage. She pulled me in and I went although every instinct in me screamed for me to stay and fight beside Dante. “I’ll hold them,” Dante said, and I heard the strain in his voice as his power continued to press against the invaders. “But Lila, you need to run. Please run and don’t look back. Please get to safety. That’s all that matters now.”“Dante….” I started, but Joan yanked me into the passage. The last thing I saw before the bookshelf swung shut behind us was Dante facing down the Council and government agents alone, his power blazing around him like a silver-blue inferno, his eyes locked on mine with an intensity that felt like this was not goodbye.It was just until next time.Then the bookshelf clicked shut, plunging us into darkness.“Move,” Joan urged, her hand finding mine in the dark. “We need to move, Lila. Dant







