CHAPTER THREE: WHAT THE MOON TAKES FIRST
Sophia woke choking.
Salt burned the back of her throat—sharp, unmistakable—as if she had swallowed lagoon water in her sleep. She bolted upright, lungs clawing for air, one hand flying to her chest.
The Moonstone was cold.
Not cool. Cold. The kind of cold that did not belong to weather or night air, but to judgment. It lay against her collarbone like a verdict already passed.
For several seconds, Sophia could not move.
Fear arrived before thought.
Her heart pounded erratically, too fast, then too slow, as if unsure which rhythm still belonged to her. The room felt subtly wrong—too narrow, too close. Even the shadows along the walls seemed sharper, watching.
She forced herself to breathe.
Lagos breathed with her. Generators hummed. A distant radio murmured a prayer half-remembered. Outside, the lagoon reflected the moon in broken silver, restless and familiar.
Nothing looked wrong.
Everything was.
Sophia slid her legs off the bed and stood.
The room tilted violently.
She gasped, grabbing for the nightstand as nausea surged. For a horrifying moment, gravity seemed to reverse, pulling her sideways—toward the Moonstone. Her balance returned only when her fingers brushed it.
Her stomach dropped.
The stone had always anchored her. It steadied her pulse, sharpened her dreams, kept her upright when others in her lineage had faltered.
It had never pulled her before.
A certainty settled into her bones, heavy and absolute.
Emma.
Sophia staggered to the window and pressed her palm to the glass, grounding herself in the cool solidity of it. Her reflection stared back at her, eyes too bright, skin too pale.
"I didn't mean to," she whispered—to Emma, to the stone, to whatever was listening.
The Moonstone hummed once.
Not comfort.
Confirmation.
By morning, the Balogun house had noticed.
It noticed the way Sophia hesitated before stepping through doorways, as if expecting the floor to give way beneath her. It noticed how her hands shook when she poured tea, how the cup rattled loudly against the saucer.
It noticed how the Moonstone no longer glowed gently, but held its light tight, compressed and watchful.
Sophia noticed too.
She noticed how her thoughts slipped sideways when she tried to focus. How anxiety clung to her chest like damp cloth. How every sound—the slam of a gate, the cry of a hawker—made her flinch.
She sat alone at the long dining table, food untouched.
Her grandmother's seat was empty.
Iya Morẹnikẹ had left before dawn, walking stick in hand, face set into something grim and inevitable. She had not needed explanations. When the Moonstone stirred, elders woke.
Sophia's throat tightened.
This is my fault, she thought, and immediately felt the stone warm in response.
Fear spiked.
"No," she said aloud. "No—don't."
The warmth faded, but the message lingered.
The Moonstone was listening now.
Rules rose in her mind, uninvited and merciless.
The Moonstone binds itself to blood.
The Moonstone does not tolerate theft.
The Moonstone takes before it gives.
And the rule her grandmother had only ever hinted at, voice dropping whenever she spoke it:
The Moonstone punishes love first.
Sophia's hands curled into fists.
She had thought she understood that rule—had assumed it meant heartbreak, distance, sacrifice.
She had not imagined terror.
She had not imagined this gnawing dread that sat behind her ribs, whispering that every heartbeat might be borrowed time.
The pain began behind her eyes shortly after noon.
Not sharp. Not sudden.
Just pressure—relentless, patient—like a thumb pressed into the softest part of her mind. Sophia tried to read and lost sentences halfway through. Tried to pray and forgot the words.
Her anxiety deepened with every failure.
Something was wrong with her thoughts. With her self.
Images bled through her concentration.
Emma collapsing.
Emma screaming.
Emma's palm lit white, veins glowing like river paths.
Sophia gasped and gripped the table so hard her knuckles burned.
This was not a warning.
This was surveillance.
The Moonstone was reporting.
Panic rose fast and dizzying. She stood too quickly, black spots blooming in her vision, and nearly fell. The house groaned softly, beams shifting, as if bracing itself for her collapse.
"I didn't give consent," Sophia said aloud, voice cracking. "She didn't take it."
The Moonstone pulsed once.
Consent, it reminded her without words, was not the only currency.
Sophia's breath came shallow now. Fear wrapped tight around her chest.
If this was only the beginning—
If this was what the Moonstone did before payment—
She didn't finish the thought.
By afternoon, the consequences spilled outward.
Her shadow lagged behind her steps, stretching toward the lagoon even when the sun stood overhead. A servant recoiled when their hands brushed hers, whispering a prayer under their breath.
Plants near her window wilted, leaves curling inward like frightened animals.
Sophia tried to walk the garden paths and had to sit halfway through, heart racing wildly, breath stuttering as though she were drowning on dry land.
Her body felt borrowed.
Unreliable.
Worse was the emotional toll.
Every thought of Emma tightened something unseen around her ribs. Love no longer felt warm—it felt dangerous. Each memory carried fear with it now, sharp and poisonous.
What if thinking of her made it worse?
What if loving her was the weapon?
Sophia sank to the floor beside her bed, hugging her knees, the Moonstone heavy in her hands.
"You're killing her," she whispered, shaking.
The stone remained cold.
"And you're killing me," she said, terror breaking through her composure.
This time, something shifted.
Not mercy.
Not apology.
Understanding.
The Moonstone did not kill.
It balanced.
Sophia began to cry—not loudly, but with the quiet horror of someone realizing there was no safe choice left.
Across the city, Emma Adebayo screamed.
The pain tore through her without warning, so sudden and absolute it stole sound from her throat. She collapsed onto her mattress, fingers clawing at sheets soaked with brine.
Her mark blazed.
White light surged up her arm, branching farther than before, curling toward her chest.
Fear drowned her.
This wasn't pain she could outrun. Her legs locked, muscles seizing, her breath coming in sharp, panicked gasps.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm sorry—I didn't know."
The whispers crowded in, overlapping, insistent.
Borrowed things must be returned.
Water pooled beneath her back. The room smelled like the lagoon.
And then—worse than pain, worse than fear—came clarity.
Sophia.
Emma saw her clearly now: pale, shaking, sinking under a weight Emma had placed there.
"Oh God," Emma whispered. "I'm killing you."
The mark flared brighter.
Yes.
Sophia felt it instantly.
A crushing pressure slammed into her chest, stealing her breath. She screamed and folded forward, forehead striking tile.
Images flooded her mind violently—Emma convulsing, white lines climbing, water rising.
Panic overwhelmed her.
"Enough!" she screamed. "Please—enough!"
The Moonstone slipped from her hands and rolled to the center of the room.
The air thickened.
The house went still.
Sophia crawled to it, sobbing, hands trembling.
"If I let go," she whispered, terror raw and naked, "will you spare her?"
The answer came with merciless clarity.
There are debts only the beloved can pay.
Sophia shook violently.
Fear eclipsed everything else.
She had been raised to guard the Moonstone.
She had not been warned it would demand her heart as collateral.
When Iya Morẹnikẹ returned at dusk, she found Sophia curled on the floor, clutching the stone like a lifeline.
Her grandmother's face softened—then hardened.
"So," she said quietly. "It has begun."
Sophia looked up, eyes wide with fear. "I can't breathe," she whispered. "I can't think. I'm scared."
Iya Morẹnikẹ said nothing.
"Tell me how to save her," Sophia begged.
Silence.
Then: "You cannot save her without losing her."
Sophia's breath hitched.
"And if I do nothing?"
Her grandmother's voice was steady. Final.
"Then the stone will take you both."
Night fell.
The moon rose.
And between two girls paralyzed by fear, bound by love they no longer knew how to survive, the Moonstone waited—ancient, patient, exacting—ready to collect what panic and desire had awakened.