The forest hummed with anticipation as we approached the Moonwell ruins, each step bringing us closer to answers I wasn't sure I wanted. My shoulder scar—the first mark the gods had left, the beginning of everything—began to pulse in rhythm with our daughter's breathing.
"It knows we're coming," Dorian murmured, hand steady on his sword though steel meant nothing here.
Ashara walked between us, small feet finding their way with eerie certainty. The runes beneath her skin glowed faintly, silver-blue traceries that mapped destinies we'd tried so hard to avoid. She hadn't spoken since we'd fled Maerith's court, but her silence held weight—the kind that preceded earthquakes.
The moment we crossed into the circle of broken stones, the world shifted.
Not dramatically—subtly, like a held breath finally released. The air thickened with presence, with the weight of accumulated years. These ruins had seen the first prophecies spoken, the first daughters sacrificed to lunar will. Now they recognized another offering approaching.
"Here," I said, guiding Ashara to the center where moonlight would fall strongest. She went willingly, sitting cross-legged on stone worn smooth by centuries of ritual.
Dorian began drawing protective sigils in salt and ash, his movements precise despite the tremor in his hands. We both felt it—the sense of standing at a crossroads where every path led through loss.
I pulled out my mother's ritual blade, its silver surface already responding to the thickening power. Three drops of my blood on the northern stone. Three drops of Dorian's on the southern. For the eastern and western markers, locks of Ashara's hair, freely given weeks ago when she'd asked me to "keep pieces of her safe."
The moon rose full above the ruins, and its light didn't fall—it pierced. A blade of luminescence that struck the center circle with physical force, making Ashara gasp. Her eyes rolled back, showing silver-white, and when she opened her mouth, the voices of the dead poured out.
Women's voices, layered like sediment. Each had carried prophecy in their time, each had paid the price in blood or madness or both. I heard my grandmother among them, the aunt who'd vanished before my birth, countless others stretching back to the first woman who'd looked at the moon and seen her own doom reflected.
And then, clear as breaking glass, my mother's voice: "Aria. My stubborn girl. You came to the same crossroads."
"Mother?" The word escaped before I could stop it.
But the ancestral chorus was already fading, making room for something larger. When Ashara spoke again, it wasn't with human voice at all. The Moon Goddess herself had found a throat.
"You have twisted fate," she said through my daughter's lips. "Broken patterns set before the first star burned. The child exists between states—neither mortal nor divine, neither free nor bound. This cannot hold."
"Then we'll make it hold," I said, though my voice shook.
"Reality is not clay for mortal hands to shape." The goddess's words carried the weight of eons. "You rewrote prophecy through will alone, but will has limits. The universe demands balance. A price for such defiance."
I felt it then—warm wetness on my upper lip. Blood dripped from my nose, spattering the ancient stone. My body's response to divine presence, or perhaps the beginning of payment coming due.
"Name your price," I managed.
"One life, freely given. No manipulation, no divine coercion. A true sacrifice—awareness and acceptance united." The Moon paused, and I could feel her attention like cold fingers on my spine. "Yours would suffice. Your death would release the child from the tangles you've woven. She would default to her original design—terrible, beautiful, exactly as intended."
"No." Dorian stepped forward, and I saw the decision already made in his eyes. "Take mine. I'm not bound by prophecy. My death would—"
"Would mean nothing." The dismissal came cold. "You are loved but not chosen. Your blood carries no weight in these scales."
More blood now, running freely from my nose. The presence was literally pulling life from me, demonstrating how easy the taking would be. Around us, the protective sigils flickered like candles in wind.
"I'll do it," I said, the words ash in my mouth. "If it frees her—"
"NO MORE SACRIFICES!"
The scream tore from Ashara's throat—not the goddess's voice but purely, entirely hers. My daughter, fighting through divine possession to make herself heard. "Not for me! Not again! I won't be the reason, won't be the excuse, won't—"
She convulsed, small body rejecting the goddess's presence with violent determination. Silver light poured from her skin, not the controlled glow of before but raw power hemorrhaging out. The Moon Goddess's voice fragmented, trying to maintain control.
"The child doesn't understand—"
"The child understands perfectly!" Ashara's voice now, fierce with toddler certainty. "Every story ends with someone dying for me. Mother. Father. Strangers. Gods. Everyone bleeds so I can be special. I DON'T WANT IT!"
The ground cracked—not physically but temporally. I saw through to other moments, other rituals, other women standing where I stood. All faced with the same choice. All choosing death to free their daughters from divine design.
And all failing. Because sacrifice given to prevent prophecy only fed it. Every mother's death became another verse in the eternal song, another reason the next daughter would be special, chosen, doomed.
The ancestors pressed close, watching through the cracks. Judging. Waiting to welcome another mother to their ranks of the lovingly damned.
But I was tired of their company.
"No," I said, stepping forward. Not toward death but toward my daughter. "I was chosen, yes. But now... I choose back."
"You cannot choose away divine will—"
"Watch me." I knelt beside Ashara, pulling her thrashing form into my arms. "I choose her humanity over your divinity. Choose her tantrums over your prophecies. Choose her skinned knees and bad dreams and every messy, mortal moment over your perfect design."
"Without sacrifice, she remains caught between—"
"Then we'll teach her to live between. To be both and neither and everything in between." I pressed my forehead to Ashara's, feeling her fever-bright with power. "I won't die for her, won't kill for her, won't sacrifice anything but the need for her to be more than she is."
The Moon Goddess's presence recoiled. This wasn't in the script. Mothers sacrificed. Daughters ascended or shattered. The pattern repeated forever.
But patterns could break if you refused to play your part.
"You doom her to incompleteness," the goddess warned, already fading.
"I doom her to choice," I corrected.
The temporal cracks began to seal, but not before I saw them—all the mothers who'd stood here, all the daughters they'd tried to save through dying. They watched us with expressions I couldn't read. Envy? Hope? Warning?
Then they were gone, and we were alone in ruins that suddenly seemed smaller. Just old stones and spilled blood and a small family refusing to follow ancient scripts.
Ashara's eyes cleared, focused on mine with perfect trust. "We're staying together?"
"Always," I promised, meaning it with every cell of my scarred, stubborn, still-breathing body.
The moon watched us leave, silent now. But I felt its attention like a promise—this wasn't over.
But tonight, we'd chosen each other over destiny.
And that was rebellion enough.
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