Sage Pov:
Rhys found her sitting on the edge of the bed at dawn, still wearing the ceremonial clothes from the night before.
She hadn't slept. She'd spent the entire night thinking about what Kael had said. About her consciousness bleeding away. About her memories fading. About becoming something that wasn't her anymore.
"Are you ready?" Rhys asked gently.
Sage nodded because what else could she do. She wanted to refuse. She wanted to demand Rhys take her back to Seattle. But something in her was already breaking down. Some part of her was starting to wonder if sacrifice was actually the right choice.
She needed to see the kingdom. She needed to understand.
Rhys led her down stone corridors and through heavy doors. The castle opened to a sprawling landscape that made her breath catch. It was massive, ancient, with towers that touched clouds. But what struck her hardest was the devastation.
The land was dying.
Fields that should have been green were ash gray. Trees were black, their branches twisted like they were screaming. The sky above had a sickly tint, like something in the air itself was poisoned. And the smell. It was wrong. Decay mixed with something chemical and ancient.
"The curse," Rhys said quietly. "It started five years ago. It doesn't just affect the wolves. It affects everything."
They walked toward the villages and that's when Sage heard the sounds.
Screaming. Not human screaming. Animal sounds. Feral and primal and broken. Rhys guided her toward the source and her stomach dropped.
A cottage with its door reinforced with chains. Inside, through the window, Sage could see a child. Maybe ten years old. His eyes glowed yellow. His teeth were sharp. He was snarling and snapping at the restraints holding him. The violence was mindless, pure animal rage with no human thought left in it.
A woman stood outside the cottage, her face destroyed by grief.
"That's my son," the woman said, noticing Sage staring. "He was human three months ago. Now he's becoming something else. In another month, he won't even remember me."
Sage couldn't speak. She turned away from the cottage and kept walking.
The village was worse.
Houses were falling apart. Gardens were full of dead plants. Some buildings were boarded up completely. Bodies were laid out on wooden platforms, wrapped in cloth, waiting for burial. Multiple bodies. So many bodies.
Rhys took her through each section methodically. The orphanage where children without families were kept, most of them already showing signs of feral transformation. The hospital where the sick were lying on straw mats with no medicine left, no hope left. The burial grounds where mass graves held so many people that the earth looked disturbed.
"We've lost thousands," Rhys said. "Every day, more die or go feral. The curse targets the weakest first. Children. The elderly. Those already sick. But eventually, it takes everyone."
Sage saw a girl who couldn't be more than eight, convulsing on a mat, her skin burning with fever. She saw an old man trying to walk and collapsing from weakness. She saw families holding dying relatives, trying to comfort them while knowing there was no comfort possible.
The weight of all that suffering was crushing her.
"There's one more place," Rhys said gently. "I know you're struggling. But you need to see this."
He took her to a small cottage on the edge of the village. Inside, a woman sat rocking a small boy. He was maybe six years old. His skin was pale, his body tiny and fragile. He was convulsing, his small body wracked with fever.
The mother looked up when they entered. Her eyes were hollow.
"Is she the one?" the mother asked. "Is she the Luna?"
Rhys nodded.
The mother stood. She moved toward Sage and grabbed her hands. Her grip was desperate.
"Please," she begged. "Please save my son. Please. I'll do anything. Give anything. He's my only baby. He's only six years old. He has so much life to live. Please don't let the curse take him."
The boy convulsed harder. His small mouth opened in a silent scream.
Sage couldn't breathe. The room was spinning. This boy, this tiny innocent child, was dying. And this mother was begging a stranger to save him. And Sage was that stranger. The one with the power. The one who could make this stop.
All she had to do was erase herself. All she had to do was give up her mind, her memories, her entire soul. All she had to do was stop being Sage Monroe and become a Luna instead.
It seemed so small suddenly. One person's mind against thousands of dying children.
But it was her mind. It was her entire existence.
The mother was still holding her hands, tears streaming down her face.
"What's your name?" Sage whispered.
"Elena," the mother said. "My son's name is Thomas. He loves stories about dragons and magic. He wanted to be a healer when he grew up. Please. Please tell me you'll save him."
Sage looked at Thomas. At his small, fevered body. At the childhood he was losing to a curse he didn't cause and couldn't fight. At the mother whose entire world was falling apart.
"I'm sorry," Sage said, and her voice broke. "I'm so sorry."
She pulled her hands away from Elena's grip and ran.
She ran through the village, past the orphanage and the hospital and the burial grounds. She ran past Rhys calling her name. She ran toward the forest because the open air felt like it was suffocating her. She ran until her legs gave out and she collapsed against a dead tree.
Elena's face was burned into her mind. Thomas's small convulsing body. The desperate plea of a mother watching her child die slowly, painfully, with no help coming.
And all Sage had to do was cease to exist.
That was the choice. Trade one person's existence for thousands. Trade her consciousness for their survival. Trade her soul for their lives.
It sounded so simple when she said it like that.
But she could feel it already, what she would lose. Her memories of her childhood. Her memories of learning to survive foster care alone. Her memories of putting herself through nursing school. Her memories of believing she could be something, someone, important.
All of that would fade. All of that would be replaced by the memories of a Luna. The perfect queen. The obedient mate.
Sage wrapped her arms around herself and sobbed.
She sobbed for Elena. She sobbed for Thomas. She sobbed for all the children dying in that dying kingdom. And she sobbed for herself, for the girl she was about to lose.
When Rhys found her, she was sitting on the cold ground, shaking and broken and completely out of tears.
"I can't do it," she whispered when he knelt beside her. "I can't become what he needs me to be."
"I know," Rhys said gently. "But Sage, look around. What's the alternative? Let them all die? Let Thomas die? Let Elena watch her son fade away?"
"I don't know," Sage said. "I don't know anymore. I don't know anything."
Rhys helped her stand. They walked back toward the castle in silence. But Sage's mind was screaming.
Two days left. She had two days to make a choice that would destroy her either way.
Either she accepted the bond and lost her mind, or she refused it and watched children die.
There was no winning.
There was only choosing which kind of death she could live with.