All Chapters of Marked By Midnight : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

Lunessa's POV With my due date fast approaching, restlessness clung to me like a second skin.The babies moved more frequently now, angrily, even. Sometimes it felt like a battle was raging inside me, like two tiny storms clashing beneath my ribs. I would hold my belly and whisper for peace, but the chaos stops for a moment. Due kept encouraging me, her calm presence grounding.‘You’re stronger than I expected,’ she said one morning through the mindlink. ‘We’re counting days now.’But strength was not what I felt. One afternoon, while helping Liora behind my uncle’s mansion, we encountered a stubborn goat that wouldn’t leave. We shooed it, threw pebbles, even tried bribing it with banana peels, but it kept coming back. My patience snapped.“Get out!” I yelled, frustration laced in every syllable as I waved my hand.A pulse of dark shadow shot from my palm like a ribbon of smoke sharp and unnatural. It struck the goat, it fell in the bushes with a frightened bleat. Liora gasped, so di

Azrik’s POVJust like Draven suggested, I turned every stone.Spies, private investigators, I paid them heavily, some in gold, others in alliance to dig for any sign of Lunessa, any trail.Draven returned with disappointing news.“We’re still trying to trace any signs of black magic in the city,” he said. “No luck so far.”“Keep pressing,” I told him. “No matter the cost.”Because if what we suspected was true, then Lunessa was more broken than I had ever imagined. If she truly believed I had laid with another woman, if that was the image planted in her mind, then her pain was justified.But knowing that didn’t lessen the guilt, in fact, it deepened it, and ate me alive. I couldn’t focus, couldn’t lead, could barely breathe.The Blood Moon was approaching, and if my calculations were correct, Lunessa would give birth on that night. A prophecy fulfilled in pain and blood.I had asked Draven to handle all ceremonial preparations. I didn’t trust myself to stand through them.Two nights b

Lunessa's POV I was the happiest woman alive as I watched my two babies sleep peacefully, their tiny chests rising and falling in a rhythm that calmed every storm in my heart. The sheer miracle of them, so small, yet so complete, wrapped me in a warmth deeper than any I had ever known. Eventually, sleep embraced me too.The soft creak of the door woke me gently the next morning.Liora stepped in, careful with each footfall. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispered. “I just wanted to check if you were up, so you could eat.”I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, blinking as light filtered through the curtains. “Yes, please,” I said with a smile. “I’m actually really hungry.”“I’ll be back soon,” she replied, closing the door behind her with the grace of someone who understood the sacred silence of new life.But then, a quiet fear began to coil in my chest. I hadn’t heard them cry during the night. Panic surged through me as I rushed to the small cradles crafted from polished moonwood, a

Lunessa's POVSome days later, as dawn broke, their cries pierced the gentle stillness of morning.Vanya hadn’t arrived yet, so I did what I could, trying to soothe them with soft words and gentle feeding, but they were restless, their cries curling around each other like twin storms in a tiny room.‘I don’t want my babies crying,’ Due whispered through the mindlink, her voice trembling with something close to tears herself.I couldn’t help but chuckle. ‘It can’t be helped, Due. They’re babies,’ I replied gently, rocking their beds.Since I gave birth, Due had been unusually emotional. Her usual sarcastic remarks had vanished, replaced with something tender and childlike. She was always gushing over them.‘Look at these tiny feet! It’s giving me baby fever,’ she’d say, her mental voice squealing with joy.Or, ‘Look at those tiny hands! Look at the glowing eyes! They’re shining like stars, Lunessa!’Every day, she found something new to marvel at.It was not usual for Shaelith to cry,

Lunessa’s POV Days blurred into weeks, and weeks quietly bled into months. Time moved in strange rhythms now, too fast when I watched them grow, too slow in the silence that followed midnight feedings.Motherhood was beautiful, but it wasn’t easy. Still, I was never alone, there was always a warm hand, a soothing word, someone to help.Since the first time I saw them floating above their crib, that strange phenomenon hadn’t happened again, or perhaps it had, when I wasn’t looking. Still, I kept a quiet watch, hoping and fearing.In between naps and lullabies, I’d begun preparing slowly for my exams. They told me I wasn’t a burden but I wanted to contribute, to stand on my own two feet again.By the third month, the twins were crawling, Shaelith with quick, curious bursts and Seraphira in a measured, almost regal pace. They were growing fast, too fast. Already heavier than babies their age, already more alert, and aware. I made sure they got every vaccination, every checkup, no misse