The night hung thick with ash and memory, and the forest whispered secrets only the damned could understand. Seraphina walked barefoot through the scorched clearing, the firelight of the rebirth pyre still flickering behind her like a heartbeat that refused to die. Lucien followed silently, the tension between them electric, like a storm trapped in flesh.
Her gown, tattered and bloodied, clung to her skin, and her hair streamed behind her like a dark flame. But it was her eyes that bore the weight of something ancient—something that had woken from a centuries-long slumber.
Lucien watched her carefully. "The Cradle Child marked you," he said at last. "But something else claimed you."
Seraphina didn't stop. "The gods are no longer silent. And I'm not just marked. I'm chosen."
Thunder cracked overhead, echoing through the trees like the roar of giants. A breeze carried the scent of iron—blood—and Lucien's body tensed.
They weren't alone.
From the shadows, figures emerged. Hooded, cloaked in bone-stitched robes, their eyes glowing faintly with the amber light of the dead. The Order of Hollowed Moons. Once believed extinct. Now returned.
Lucien stepped in front of Seraphina, his claws unsheathing. "This forest is claimed. Leave before your blood salts the earth."
The lead figure stepped forward, removing her hood. A woman—no, a wraith in flesh. Her skin was gray and veined with veins of blackened silver. Her mouth curled into a grin that didn't reach her hollow eyes.
"The moon drinks the blood of the marked," she said, voice like dead leaves. "And tonight, it is thirsty."
Seraphina stepped beside Lucien. "If it's blood you want, you'll choke on mine."
The woman raised her hand. Shadows exploded from the forest floor like claws. Lucien snarled and lunged, his body shifting mid-air. Bones snapped, fur bloomed, and the Black Wolf of the Nightlands returned.
He tore into the first cultist, shredding the figure with a roar that shook the canopy. Seraphina raised her hands, fire dancing along her arms, pulsing with a crimson glow that was no longer just hers.
"Burn," she whispered.
The trees ignited. Screams pierced the night. And the shadows writhed like living things.
But the Hollowed Moon priestess didn't burn. She stepped through the flames untouched, her arms spread wide as if to embrace death itself.
"You are the vessel," she hissed at Seraphina. "He calls to you. The moon king. The one chained beneath bloodstone."
Seraphina staggered, her mark burning bright, blinding. Visions flooded her mind—a crimson moon bleeding into a silver sea, a man with obsidian eyes kneeling before an altar of bone, whispering her name.
Lucien's growl brought her back.
"She's mine," he roared. "Her blood is her own."
The ground cracked open beneath them. Roots twisted into hands. The priestess vanished into smoke.
And the moon—once hidden—emerged. Full. Hungry.
Its light fell on Seraphina, and she screamed.
Not in pain.
In awakening.
She dropped to her knees, the earth trembling around her. Her blood surged, not red, but silver. Her veins shimmered, her skin glowing like moonstone.
Lucien shifted back to his human form, breath ragged. "Seraphina… what are you?"
She looked at him, tears carving clean lines through ash. "Not a witch. Not a girl. Not anymore."
He reached for her, but the ground pulsed. A sigil formed beneath her—an ancient seal split in two. Half wolf. Half moon.
Lucien fell back, struck by invisible force. "You're his!"
Seraphina stood, taller somehow. Stronger. "I am no man's. But he's part of me. The Moon King. The bloodline lost to fire. He lives in me."
A howl echoed across the sky. Not wolf. Not man.
Something in between.
Seraphina turned toward it, eyes glowing silver. "He's calling. And I must answer."
Lucien shook his head. "You don't know what he is."
"I don't care," she said, voice steel and shadow. "I'll find him. And if he's what they say… I'll bind him. Or burn him."
Lucien stepped forward. "Then I go with you."
She looked back at him. "Would you kill him if I asked?"
His silence was answer enough.
The forest swallowed them whole as they walked deeper into the black, the moonlight trailing like blood behind them.
Her blood was no longer hers.
And the moon… no longer his.
It was theirs.
Together.
Bound by prophecy, hunted by fate.