POV: Luna Alira
Alira walked barefoot beneath the stars.
The wind held no chill, but she wrapped her shawl tighter anyway. Not from cold, but from knowing. From the weight in her bones that told her tonight would not pass without consequence. Ironfang slept behind her, even Theron, but the woods were awake.
She followed no marked path. There were no stones or carved signs to guide her; just memory, instinct, and the slow pull of something older than duty. Ione, her wolf, did not speak. She didn't need to because they both knew where they were going.
The clearing came as it always had suddenly, softly. A ring of ash trees guarding a flat slab of stone etched with runes so ancient they had worn smoothly from centuries of reverent touch.
Alira stepped into the center and with the stars watching, she dropped to her knees.
Her fingers trembled as she uncorked the small vial at her waist. Inside: ashroot mixed with silver dust. She drew a crescent on her wrist, the mark of silent vows.
Then she spoke.
Not loud.
Not desperate.
Just true.
"Goddess of shadow and light, I speak because the veil is thinning. I speak because I can no longer bear the weight of my silence."
The wind stopped and the night leaned in.
And then…She came.
The Moon Goddess did not descend. She unfolded from light, from silence, from the marrow of the world itself. Alira did not see Her form, only Her presence. Heavy. Holy. Unmistakable.
It was not warmth.
It was not cruelty.
It was truth.
"You kept her breathing," the voice said softly and all-consuming.
Alira's head bowed lower. "I didn't know what she was," she whispered. "Only that she needed… space."
"You chose silence. That, too, is power."
Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. "But was it the right choice?"
The Goddess did not answer in words. Not right away.
She answered in memory from years past.
Alira saw herself standing in the Ironfang courtyard as a child was carried in. The child was covered in mud and small. Glowing faintly in a way no one else seemed to see.
And beside her cloaked and calm… Spirit.
Speaking words that echoed now, perfectly clear: "She is not broken. She is folded. Like paper before flight."
Back in the present, Alira choked back a breath. "You knew then," she said aloud. "And you let me do nothing."
"Nothing is never nothing," the Moon Goddess replied. "You gave her breath. You gave her time. You gave her a place to survive."
Briefly, the altar flared with pale blue fire then Alira flinched as a vision began.
She saw:
A girl wreathed in moonlight and thorn
A wolf that did not howl, but sang
A crown with no king, and a king with no name
A door made of bone and bloom
A valley of ash split by fire and silver and violet eyes, watching from within
"The one who was buried will rise," the Goddess whispered. "But not whole. Not without breaking."
Alira gasped as the mark on her wrist split open. Not pain but offering a drop of blood which hit the altar and sank beneath the stone. "I don't understand," she breathed. "What must I do?"
"You must remember," said the Goddess, "you must choose and when the time comes… you must let go."
The presence faded and the woods filled with sound again with branches creaking, wind returning.
Ione stirred inside her. "You saw the truth," her wolf said softly.
"I did," Alira whispered. "And now I can't unsee it."
She staggered to her feet. The altar behind her pulsed once, then stilled. As she turned to leave the grove, a shape stepped from the trees.
Spirit.
Wrapped in a robe of ink and dusk, her face unreadable in the starlight.
Alira didn't flinch.
Spirit didn't bow. "You asked," Spirit said. "And the Moon Goddess answered."
Alira met her eyes. "And now?"
Spirit's gaze didn't waver. "Now… the future decides if it listens."