Semua Bab MOONBOUND DESIRE : Bab 31 - Bab 40

The aurora faded by dawn, but something lingered.Not in the sky—but in the air between them.It was a tension Selene couldn’t name, but she felt it every time her children stood too close—or too far apart. Their connection no longer moved in harmony.It pulled.Elira toward the stars.Theron toward the shadows.And something inside Selene whispered—> They were never meant to grow in the same direction.---It began with a glance.Elira stood near the cliffs, tracing runes in the air. Her fingertips shimmered, trailing ribbons of golden starlight that hummed softly—gentle, warm, radiant.Theron stood below her, by the firepit. But his hand clenched at his side, eyes fixed on the same runes.When she cast one—his body jerked.Selene saw it.The light burned him.---Later that afternoon, Naeria pulled Selene aside.“They’re... opposites,” the witch said. “Light and void. Star and storm. If their powers continue to evolve this way—”“They’ll destroy each other?” Selene’s voice was b

The pain began like a whisper.A sharp flicker in Selene’s left hand—just beneath her skin—where her magic usually danced in calm, silver heat.But now?It pulsed with something darker.Colder.Wrong.She clenched her fist, trying to summon a light spell to soothe it, but the glow stuttered. Warped. Flared red for a second before collapsing.Naeria saw it happen.And her face turned pale.“That’s not exhaustion,” she said. “That’s corruption.”---They examined it that night.Rowan used a spectral blade to lift the skin without cutting. Elira held her mother’s shoulder, silent but steady. Theron stood at the edge of the tent, his eyes dark and distant.Inside Selene’s palm, etched like a scar:A shard of mirror.So small it looked like a splinter of starlight—but it pulsed with its own rhythm. Like a heartbeat. Or a curse.“It’s from the shattered Hollow Mirror,” Naeria whispered. “You were holding it when time collapsed.”Selene’s voice was calm. “So it marked me.”Kael took her hand

The voice began as a vibration in Theron’s bones.It wasn’t sound, not really—more like a pulse from the earth itself. A rhythm that matched his heartbeat. A whisper beneath the wind.> Come.It called to him in the quiet moments—just before dawn, just before sleep. And always, it led his eyes south. Toward the crags beneath the Blackbone Ridge.The others didn’t hear it.But Elira saw it in his eyes.And when he packed a satchel of lightstones and knives without speaking, she was already behind him.“You’re not going without me,” she said.---The caverns beneath Blackbone Ridge weren’t on any map.Not even in Naeria’s ancient scrolls.They were known only in half-lost warnings and the kind of stories that made wolves bare their throats in fear.> “Where the Stone breathes, time forgets.”The entrance opened between two broken roots, almost like a wound in the mountain.Dark.Cold.Alive.---Elira’s starlight led the way.Theron moved in silence, eyes flicking between runes carved i

The earth was still warm where the Thornmother had fallen.Rowan knelt among the blackened soil, sifting through the ashes with calloused fingers. Beneath the surface, something pulsed—soft, rhythmic, and wrong.Kael stood a few paces away, arms crossed, firelight flickering against his bronze skin. “What are we looking for, exactly?”Rowan didn’t look up. “A ghost.”Kael’s eyes narrowed. “You think she left a piece of herself?”Rowan nodded once. “Something older than her. Something she was feeding.”---The twins approached in silence.Theron stopped short, shadows trailing behind his boots like mist. “There’s something under the dirt.”“I feel it too,” Elira whispered, kneeling beside Rowan. Her fingers glowed as she touched the ground, and the ash responded—lifting in threads, like smoke reversing its fall.Together, they cleared a circular space about two feet wide.And there it was.A stone seal—etched with runes no one recognized. Interlocking spirals. A double crescent. An eye

The stars that night burned colder than usual—sharp and clear, like shards of forgotten prophecy.Selene stood barefoot in the center of the sacred ring Naeria had carved into the earth, her dark cloak trailing behind her like shadow-stained wings. Crushed moonroot, glimmering silver dust, and old runes outlined the circle around her feet. Above, constellations blinked steadily in an ink-dark sky, hanging low—closer than they had any right to be.She inhaled deeply, eyes closed.The air tasted different tonight.It tasted like memory.Like fate.---Kael stood just outside the ring, his arms crossed over his chest. His gold-ringed eyes followed every movement with quiet intensity.“You’re sure about this?” he asked.Selene nodded. “It’s time I know the truth.”“You already know who you are.”She opened her eyes and met his gaze.“No. I know what they told me I was. That’s different.”---Naeria stood opposite Kael, her fingers glowing faintly with spelllight. Her tone was softer than