All Chapters of The Luna’s Forbbidden Blood : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Kael’s POVMy lungs burned with every breath. The forest air was thick with the scent of pine and something metallic, a lingering ozone that tasted like the labyrinth we had barely escaped. Beside me, Maya moved with a fluid, silent grace, her boots barely disturbing the leaves. She was exhausted, I could see it in the way her shoulders slumped, but she kept moving. She kept fighting.Silas stopped in front of a massive, gnarled oak tree that seemed to bleed resin from a jagged wound in its side. He tapped a sequence into a hidden panel near the roots. A low, grinding sound vibrated through the ground, and a section of the hillside slid away, revealing a dark, tunnel-like opening."Inside," Silas commanded, his voice tight. "The Purifiers are close."I didn't hesitate. I shoved Maya forward and followed her into the dark, my hand hovering over the hilt of my blade. The space inside was not a cave. It was a corridor lined with smooth, cold panels that hummed with a faint, rhythmic ligh

Maya’s POVThe wind howling through the hollowed-out remains of the city did not sound like the wind I knew. It whistled through the rusted skeletal structures of buildings that used to be, or perhaps never were—our homes. The stone was covered in a thick, choking blanket of vines that seemed to squeeze the history out of the walls.I looked at Kael. He was staring at a massive, toppled statue in the center of the town square. It was worn down by centuries of rain, but the shape was undeniable. It was a wolf. A wolf standing on its hind legs, wearing the crest of the First Pack."They remembered us," Kael whispered, his voice cracking. "Or they feared us enough to carve us into stone.""They didn't remember us, Kael," I said, reaching out to touch the cold, mossy surface of the wolf’s snout. "They mythologized us. Look at this place. It isn't a city of survivors. It is a city of worshipers who died waiting for gods that never came."We walked further into the ruins. The ground was lit

Kael’s POVThe ascent was not a climb so much as a crawl through the intestines of a dying giant. The stone under my palms felt feverish, pulsing with a low, rhythmic thud that made the marrow in my bones vibrate. Every few yards, the girl with the violet eyes would stop and press her ear to the rock, her expression shifting from anticipation to a sharp, jagged kind of grief."It is close now," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the groaning of the mountain. "The heart is just beyond the veil of the old world."Maya was right behind me, her breathing heavy but controlled. I could feel her presence like a physical heat at my back. We hadn't spoken since we left the ruins of the city. We didn't need to. The air was too thin, and the stakes were too high for words. We were walking toward a sacrifice, and we both knew that only one of us might be coming back down.The tunnel opened abruptly into a cavern that defied logic. It was a massive, hollowed-out sphere of obsidian, lit f

Kael’s POVThe silence was a physical blow. The world didn’t come back all at once; it bled in through the edges of my vision as a series of disconnected images. The white smoke of the explosion hung over the northern face like a shroud, and the air tasted of copper and scorched earth. I was lying on my back, my ears ringing with a high-frequency whine that drowned out the wind.I looked at my hand. The gauntlet was gone, replaced by a jagged, blackened scar that ran from my knuckles to my elbow. The girl was gone too. There was nothing left of the drill or the child who had saved us except a shallow, glassy crater where the earth had literally melted."Kael."Silas’s voice was strained. I felt him grab my collar and haul me to my feet. He looked like he had been through a thresher. His bone mask was cracked down the middle, revealing one wide, bloodshot eye that darted frantically toward the sky."Look up," he rasped, pointing a shaking finger. "The blast... it didn't just stop the

Kael’s POVThe ascent through the pillar of light felt less like flying and more like being pulled through a needle’s eye. The violet energy, raw and searing, stripped the breath from my lungs. Every nerve ending screamed as Maya’s power surged through the gauntlet, anchoring my physical form to a reality that was rapidly dissolving.We hit the hangar floor of the white vessel not with a thud, but with a crackle of static. I rolled to my feet, the violet light on my hand fading to a dull, bruised glow. Behind me, Silas and a dozen shadow dwellers materialized, their forms flickering like a bad reception. Silas vomited immediately, the transition from earth to sky turning his stomach, but he still kept his grip on the obsidian shard.The hangar was a cathedral of sterile, white metal. There were no crates, no grease, no signs of life. Just rows of empty armored suits standing like sentinels in alcoves, waiting for souls to fill them."This isn't a ship," Silas rasped, wiping his mouth.