I don't quite remember when it started.
Everyone hailed me as their savior—for a war that is yet to come, they say. Everyone praised me, calling me the top of this world, as if I were a summit to be claimed. I was born to fulfill the destiny of a bloodline I never chose. To end the one who would one day drown the world in shadow and flame.
They say I must stop him. They say I am the last light before the fall.
But no one asked me if I wanted to be light.
I remember stories my mother used to whisper when the temple's bells fell silent. She spoke of starlit gardens, of glass-winged spirits, of skies where time flowed backward. She told me how she met a man who wasn't a man at all——a celestial being who walked the lower realm as punishment for a war of his own.
She never said his name. Only that when she touched his skin, it felt like morning.
From their union, I was born. Not of love, she said. But of prophecy.
They raised me beneath spires carved from moonstone, in the Temple of Threads. A sacred place where every breath is watched, and every thought is judged. I was not allowed to cry—not because tears were weakness, but because tears are mortal.
And I was not allowed to be one.
They call me Luna Gadriel. Heir to the Celestial Line. Bearer of the Third Circle's Flame. Chosen Judge of the Godborn Trial.
But before all of that—I was just a girl with golden hair who longed to feel the sun on her skin. Not the divine light. Just the warmth.
"Stand straight, child," came the cold voice of High Seer Vareon as I knelt in the Chamber of Threads. My knees ached against the marble, but I didn't flinch. I'd learned early: pain is part of their language.
The chamber was as silent as ever. Twelve archways surrounded the inner sanctum like watching eyes, each carved with sigils older than written time. Suspended above us, the great hourglass of the Tribunal spilled luminous sand upward.
I was eight. But I knew already that my life was not my own.
"You are ready," Vareon said. "The spirit Solviel has agreed to observe."
Observe. Not guide. Not bless. Observe.
And then it came.
Light fractured the air, bending reality into shards. A figure emerged, neither male nor female, tall and robed in flowing cloth that shimmered like starlight over water. Its mask was expressionless, white as bone, with gold markings that shifted as if alive. Its wings were not feathers—but panes of living light, bending and pulsing as if caught in a breathless wind.
Solviel. Spirit of the Third Circle. Arbiter of the Great Echo.
It did not speak in words. It imposed thought. A whisper layered on a thousand mirrored voices.
"Luna Gadriel... You have been weighed. You are incomplete. You will become."
I tried to meet its gaze, but it had no eyes. Only the sense that it was already watching every version of me—past, present, and yet to come.
"You seek warmth, yet walk in the cold. You ask why, yet carry answers within. You shall bear me. Not as guide. Not as companion. But as witness to your spiral."
I should have felt blessed. But all I felt… was fear.
Solviel raised one long, glimmering hand and touched my chest. Not my body—but something beneath it.
"The contract is bound. Not by choice. But by thread."
Then it vanished. And the cold stayed behind.
That night, I did not sleep. The stars watched me from above the temple dome, silent and still.
And for the first time in my life… I wondered:
What if I wasn't the light they needed?
What if I was the beginning of the end?
That night, after the spirit bound itself to my soul, I couldn't sleep.
The stars looked colder than usual. And even the temple's ever-burning lanterns felt dimmer.
So I found myself walking, barefoot, down the sacred corridor of pearl tiles—where every footstep felt like it echoed through a thousand prayers.
I stopped in front of her door.My hand trembled, just a little, before I knocked.Three gentle taps.
My mother had long been blind.They said it happened after giving birth to me—her sight taken as the price for birthing something divine.Since then, she spent most of her days in the inner sanctum, praying and teaching the youngest girls how to listen for the voice of the stars.
But even without eyes, she always knew when I came.
"Is that you, dear Luna?" she called, her voice as calm as drifting incense. I heard the soft thump of her fingers tapping the floor—her way of feeling vibrations in the stone.
"Yes, Mother," I said, quietly.
"Then come in and sit beside me," she answered gently.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. The chamber smelled of dried sage and candle wax, warm and sacred. I walked to her side and sat down, folding my legs beside her woven cushion. She reached for me, her hand finding the crown of my head with ease.
She began brushing her fingers through my golden hair, as she always did when I was afraid but didn't say so.
"How did the spirit's resonance feel?" she asked.
I paused. The question felt too big for the words I knew.
"I… I don't know. It felt like I became more bright?" I said uncertainly.
She smiled at that—softly, like a memory being relived.
"Brightness is not always warmth, Luna," she whispered. "Sometimes, it is the harshness of a flame. Sometimes, it is the weight of being seen by things greater than us."
I leaned my head into her hand.
"Did Father ever meet his spirit?" I asked. I'd never dared before.
There was silence for a while. Then her hand stilled.
"He did," she said. "But your father did not bond with his. Celestials are not always granted companions. Some are simply… watched."
"Is that what Solviel is doing to me? Watching?"
She hesitated again.
Then finally: "Yes. Watching. And judging. Third Circle spirits do not attach out of affection. They are the keepers of outcomes. They come only when the stars demand something absolute."
My chest tightened.
"Do you think I'll become a goddess?" I asked. I didn't know why I asked it. Maybe because the word had been whispered around me since I was three. Maybe because no one ever asked if I wanted to.
My mother exhaled slowly, like the question pulled something old from her.
"No, Luna," she said, brushing a strand behind my ear. "I think… you'll become something far lonelier."
My mother was always honest with me.Brutally so.Maybe it was because I could always tell when someone lied.
They say it was a gift from the heavens, but I don't think it was.
By the time I was four, I could hear the flicker in a voice, the crack between words, the tremble behind a sentence. I could feel the bend of truth. I understood intention before I could write my own name.
That was how the temple uncovered eleven corrupted priests.They were cleansed—publicly.And they called me a miracle.
But I was just a child who cried when people's words didn't match their eyes.
So when my mother told me I'd become something lonelier than a goddess...I knew she meant it.
"Lonelier…" I repeated under my breath.
My small voice barely reached above the glow of the temple lanterns.I turned my head and pressed my face into her lap.
"Mother… I don't want to," I whispered.
Her hands stilled.The silence stretched like a thread between us, taut and delicate.
She laid her hand gently on my back. "Luna, no matter how many times we tug against fate... we cannot always unravel it."
I felt her breathing slow, calm like always—like she had practiced that calm a thousand times just for me.
"Maybe," she continued, "you will one day grow to accept it. Just as your grandfather did during the wars—when blood painted the skies and peace was a foolish word. He carried his fate until it no longer bled."
"I don't want to be alone…" I whispered, almost inaudibly.
She smiled—a little bitterly, a little fondly—and touched my cheek.
"Oh, my starlight… you won't be," she said. "One day, when you grow stronger and walk the lands outside these marble walls, people will follow you."
She leaned in closer, and I could feel her breath on my forehead.
"Some will follow because they believe in your light. Others will follow because they fear what happens if they don't. But one way or another… you will never walk in silence."
I looked up at her, at the face that had never seen the stars—but had felt their weight longer than I'd been alive.
And I wondered—
Would they still follow me if they knew I wanted to run?