Silence fell like a heavy blanket.
The chanting had stopped. The symbols froze mid-spin. Even the air felt wrong, thick and unmoving, as if the chamber itself was holding its breath.
Luna stared at her hands.
They were no longer glowing silver or gold. Darkness crawled over her skin like living ink, veins of shadow pulsing beneath the surface. The mark on her chest burned cold now, not hot, spreading outward in jagged lines.
"Luna…" Kael's voice sounded distant. Fear threaded through it, raw and unmasked.
She lifted her head slowly.
The Watcher had stepped back, his calm finally shattered. "That should not have happened," he said sharply. "The bond was meant to seal, not—"
Not break, Luna finished in her head.
Inside her, something shifted.
The Devourer did not roar. It did not whisper.
It laughed.
Soft at first. Then louder. Deeper. No longer trapped behind chains, no longer pressed against the edges of her mind. It stretched, vast and awake, like a beast finally standing after centuries of sleep.
You felt it too, didn't you? it said smoothly. The moment the lock shattered.
Luna's knees trembled, but she stayed standing. "You said this would bind you," she whispered. "You said you'd be trapped."
I was, the Devourer replied. Until you chose sacrifice over fear. Until you broke the rule that held me.
The floor cracked beneath her feet.
Rhea stumbled back, barely keeping her balance. "The ground—"
A violent tremor shook the chamber. Stone split apart, symbols shattering as black light poured from the cracks like smoke made solid.
The Watcher raised his staff, slamming it into the floor. "Containment breach! All sentinels form the barrier now!"
The walls screamed.
Yes, screamed.
Luna clutched her chest as power surged again, sharper than before. This was not pain. This was something else. Something vast trying to pour through a body too small to hold it.
Kael shifted, bones cracking as his wolf fought to emerge. "Get away from her!" he snarled at the Watcher.
"She is the problem!" the Watcher shouted back. "The vessel has become the gate!"
Luna's father coughed weakly, struggling to sit up. "Luna… look at me."
She turned toward him, desperate, terrified. "Dad, I didn't mean—"
His eyes widened.
Not with fear.
With recognition.
"Oh no," he breathed. "They were wrong."
Luna's heart slammed against her ribs. "Wrong about what?"
He swallowed hard. "You were never meant to hold it."
Another tremor hit, stronger than the last. A sharp crack echoed as the ceiling began to split open, darkness spilling through like a night sky with no stars.
The Watcher backed away slowly. "This is not the Devourer alone," he said, voice tight. "This is something older."
The Devourer's voice dropped, no longer amused.
They remember me now.
Luna's vision blurred as images flooded her mind. Ancient moons. Blood-soaked altars. Entire cities kneeling in shadow. And at the center of it all—
Her.
Not as she was now.
As something crowned.
Bound.
Worshipped.
Kael grabbed her shoulders. "Luna, stay with me. Whatever you're seeing, fight it."
She looked at him, tears spilling freely. "I don't think I'm losing control," she whispered. "I think I never had it."
The darkness surged outward, ripping through the last of the symbols. The barrier shattered like glass.
The Watcher shouted a single word in a language Luna did not understand.
Too late.
From the crack in the ceiling, something massive began to descend. Not a body. Not a creature.
An eye.
Ancient. Endless. Opening slowly in the dark.
The Devourer went completely still.
…It has found you.
Luna's breath caught. "What has?"
The thing we ran from, the Devourer whispered, and for the first time, Luna heard genuine terror in its voice. The reason I hid inside your bloodline. The reason your ancestors bound me in the first place.
The eye fully opened.
It looked directly at Luna.
And blinked.
The chamber collapsed.
Not physically—structurally, it remained intact. But reality itself seemed to fold inward, layers of existence peeling back like torn paper.
Luna saw through the cracks between moments.
Saw herself standing in this exact spot a thousand years ago, silver crown on her head, chains wrapped around her wrists.
Saw herself speaking words she couldn't hear.
Saw herself choosing this.
"No," she gasped. "That's not real. That's not me."
But her father's face told a different story.
"The Moonbound were never protectors," he said hoarsely. "You were jailers. And what you imprisoned…" He looked up at the descending eye. "It's been waiting for the day you'd remember."
The eye pulsed once.
And Luna's knees buckled as a memory that wasn't hers crashed through her mind—
Standing before an altar of bone and starlight.
Speaking an oath that burned her tongue.
Binding the Devourer not to save the world—
But to hide what she'd done to break it.
Kael caught her as she fell. "Luna!"
She clutched his arms, gasping. "I destroyed something. A long time ago. Something that kept the worlds separate."
Rhea's face went white. "The Veil."
Luna's father nodded grimly. "The First Moonbound didn't close the rifts between realms. She created them. And when she realized what she'd done, she bound the Devourer to herself as punishment. As penance."
The Watcher's staff clattered to the ground. "Then the seal breaking means—"
"The original sin returns," Luna's father finished. "And this time, there's no one left who remembers how to stop it."
The eye descended further, close enough now that Luna could see shapes moving within its pupil.
Shadows.
Dozens of them.
Hundreds.
All wearing her face.
Welcome back, they said in unison. We've been holding your throne.
Luna screamed as the darkness wrapped around her like welcoming arms.
The last thing she heard before the world went black was the Devourer's voice, small and broken:
I'm sorry, little Moon. I should have told you the truth.
You were never the prisoner.
You were always the key.
When Luna's eyes opened again, she was no longer in the chamber.
She stood in a throne room made entirely of frozen moonlight and living shadow.
And sitting on the throne, smiling with her own face, was someone who looked exactly like her—
Except older.
Colder.
Crowned.
"Hello, child," the figure said. "I've been ruling in your absence."
Luna's voice came out as a whisper. "Who are you?"
The crowned figure tilted her head, amusement dancing in silver eyes.
"I'm what you become when you stop pretending to be weak."
She stood, and the throne shattered behind her into a thousand pieces of light.
"I'm the First Moonbound."
She stepped forward, close enough that Luna could see the same mark on her chest, the same dark veins crawling beneath her skin.
"I'm your past, your future, and the part of you that's been screaming to break free since the day you were born."
She leaned in, lips beside Luna's ear.
"And now that you've finally opened the door…"
The throne room's walls began to crack, revealing an endless void beyond.
"…it's time to finish what we started."
Behind the First Moonbound, a figure emerged from the shadows.
Tall. Wrapped in chains that glowed with dying light.
Luna's breath stopped.
It was the Devourer.
But not the formless entity she'd carried inside her.
This was its true form.
And it was kneeling.
"My queen," it said, bowing its head. "The binding is complete. The world is ready. Your army awaits your command."
The First Moonbound smiled and extended her hand toward Luna.
"So tell me, little echo," she purred. "Will you fight me for control?"
Her smile widened, showing too many teeth.
"Or will you finally accept who you've always been and take what's yours?"