Chapter Twenty Seven
The Hollow reeked of blood and sulfur.
Smoke choked the sky as I stepped over the shattered threshold of the cult’s altar chamber, my boots slick with ash and something darker. The stone walls pulsed with residual magic–wrong, crawling magic that made my skin crawl. The battle had raged for what felt like hours. Keiran fought like a beast made flesh, his blade an extension of his fury. The Stormborn warriors behind us lay panting, bruised, but alive.
At the center of the chamber, the cult’s high priest lay broken, his limbs twisted, mouth still frozen in a final, wordless scream. My blade had ended him. No regrets.
But the true leader–the one behind the chants, the sigils, the curse that tried to claim my daughter–had vanished into shadow.
I didn’t care.
Not yet.
Because Ayla’s cry was still echoing inside me, etched into my bones. That night in the tent, her glowing mark had whispered of something ancient. Something sacred. And in this moment, standing amidst desecration, I finally felt it stir in me too. The air shifted.”
Keiran turned to me, blood streaked down his temple. “Selene.“}
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My body.trembled–not from fear or exhaustion, but from something far older, something… waking.
The Veil around the altar shimmered. A final sigil glowed faintly on the stone slab where they’d performed their twisted rites. A conduit. A channel meant to drain Ayla’s mark into the realm beyond.”
I stepped toward it.
Keiran caught my wrist. “Selene. Don’t.”
But I wasn’t afraid. I placed my palm on the stone–and the world fell away.
Flame.
Moonlight.
Wolves howling beneath an eclipsed sky.
And her voice.
Not Ayla’s.
Hers.Д
“Daughter of the line reborn in blood. The flame does not ask permission to burn.“)
I gasped as heat surged through me–not fire, but light. Silver and gold, old as time. It coiled through my limbs, settled in my chest, and ignited something that wasn’t meant for this world.
Keiran’s voice sounded far away. “Selene!“}
I lifted my hand. It glowed. My veins pulsed with the same power that Ayla carried–the same power they’d tried to steal. I understood
now.
The moonmark wasn’t just a blessing.
it was a weapon.}
I turned to the last standing cultists scrambling for escape. My eyes locked onto the lingering priestess–a woman with skeletal tattoos and a grin carved too wide.”
“You think this ends with a child?” she spat.. “You’ve only delayed the storm.“}
“Then let the storm come,” I said, and raised my hand.
Light exploded from my fingertips–no, not light. Flame. Pale silver fire laced with threads of gold, fire that didn’t burn flesh but soul. It hit her square in the chest.
She screamed.”
Not in pain, but in remorse.
The flame didn’t kill her. It forced her to see–the atrocities she’d committed, the innocence she’d betrayed. It stripped her lies bare and left her weeping as she crumpled to the floor.
Keiran stared, jaw clenched. “What was that?“{
I lowered my hand slowly. “I don’t know.“”
But I did. Deep down, I did.
It was the reckoning flame. The Moon Goddess’s judgment. And somehow–through Ayla, through blood, through the choices I had made -I had been chosen to carry it.#
Marwen’s voice crackled through the far–seeing stone Keiran had tied to his belt.
“It’s Ayla,” she said. “The glow–it’s stabilizing. The magic’s fading.”
I exhaled, knees nearly giving out.
“She’s safe?” I rasped.
11:27 AM
“She’s safe?” I rasped.N
“For now,” Marwen said. “But the mark… it’s changed.”
I looked down at my own palm. My veins still shimmered faintly, the last of the ancestral flame pulsing beneath my skin. It hadn’t Ivanished. It had settled.
Keiran stepped forward. “The priest is dead. The sigils are broken. If the ritual was tied to this place…“N
“…then we bought her time,” I finished, voice hollow. “But not peace.“N
We left The Hollow in silence, the wind sharp against our faces. The storm we’d delayed was still coming. The leader of the Veilborn had slipped through our fingers. But Ayla was alive.N
And something inside me had changed forever.N
When we returned to the Stormborn camp, the dawn was breaking over frost–laced trees.N
I ran for the tent where she lay.N
She looked small, wrapped in furs, but her breathing was steady now. The fever was gone. Her face peaceful. But when I pulled the fabric down to check her moonmark, my breath caught.N
It had changed.
No longer just a silver crescent–it now shimmered with threads of gold, forming a spiral within the moon. The same light that had flared in my veins. The same flame that had answered me in The Hollow.N
“She’s more than a vessel,” Marwen whispered. “She’s a torch. One that cannot be extinguished.“N
Usat beside her, brushing a curl from her forehead. My hand still glowed faintly.
“She’s my daughter,” 1 said softly. “And no cult, no prophecy, no ancient darkness will take her from me.”N
Keiran entered quietly. He didn’t speak, just knelt behind me and rested a warm hand on my shoulder. The weight of it steadied me.}
I leaned into him, just for a moment.
“We have work to do,” I said, not looking away from Ayla. “They’ll come again. And next time… I won’t wait for them to strike.”
He nodded, voice low. “Then we make them fear the fire.“N
The reckoning had only just begun.
Seven
