Chapter 26
Jul 18, 2025
The Great Hall burned with joy.
Torchlight spilled from the vaulted ceilings like golden fire. Laughter rose in waves, loud and unchained, echoing off the same marble walls that had once heard only silence and screams.
Tables were piled high with roasted meat, sweetroot glaze, and braided moonbread—foods once forbidden to anyone without a title. Tonight, they belonged to everyone.
And in the center of it all stood forty-seven women.
No longer draped in sacrificial white, no longer branded with silence and submission. They wore armor now—leather, silversteel, woven chain—each piece chosen by their own hand.
The old nobles whispered that the Moon Guard looked like a rebellion reborn.
Good.
“You serve no master but justice,” I said, voice echoing through every corner. “You kneel to no authority but your own conscience.”
Forty-seven swords rose as one. Steel flashed in the firelight, catching like a signal flare over a battlefield long since won. Their cry rang like thunder:
“For the Luna! For freedom!”
The crowd surged into cheers. The same nobles who once demanded our obedience now raised their cups to our defiance. Power didn’t shift with ceremonies—it shifted with fear. And we weren’t afraid anymore.
Through the waves of celebration, the Oracle emerged.
She walked slow, leaning on her gnarled staff, but her eyes—those didn’t belong to any old woman. They blazed with something eternal. Prophecy. Truth. Memory that wasn’t hers, but still lived behind her lashes.
“Walk with me, child,” she said.
We slipped into a quiet alcove just beyond the banners and wine-soaked speeches. Torchlight flickered across the stone. Here, the walls remembered what the crowd outside forgot: that joy came only after fire.
“The celebration honors you,” she said. “But celebrations end. Choices remain forever.”
I folded my arms. “Speak plainly.”
“The bond you contemplate with Lord Hector—it will change everything.” Her grip tightened around her staff. “If you let him mark you, you will feel everything he feels. His joy. His rage. His grief. His sins. His pain.”
Her voice was no threat. Just the truth. Heavy, ancient truth.
“The connection is deeper than marriage. Deeper than blood. You won’t be able to hide from each other. If he dies, it’ll break you. If he betrays you…” She paused. “It could destroy you.”
I didn’t flinch. “Then I’ll carry it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Even his darkness?”
“Especially his darkness,” I answered. “Love isn’t about choosing someone’s light. It’s choosing to walk beside their shadows.”
The Oracle studied me for a long moment. Then she nodded.
“You understand the price,” she said. “Pay it willingly, or not at all.”
Dawn kissed the world in gold.
I found Hector at the lake’s edge. The surface reflected the rising sun in molten ripples. Once, this was the place where girls were drowned for not obeying. Now, it was quiet. Sacred. Free.
He didn’t look at me right away. Just kept his eyes on the water, his silhouette outlined in morning fire.
“The lake looks different,” I said.
He nodded. “No more bones beneath the surface. No more secrets clawing at your ankles.”
The mist rose like spirits finally let go. The silence between us wasn’t awkward—it was full. Comfortable.
“My mother stood here,” he said, voice low. “Before they killed her. She said the lake remembers.”
I reached for his hand. He didn’t pull away.
“What did she want you to remember?”
“That love was worth dying for.” His eyes met mine. “But living for it was harder.”
A breath caught in my throat.
I thought of my mother. Of Alira. Of every girl who’d walked this path and never gotten to choose where it ended.
“We both lost our mothers to their system,” I said. “But we ended it. They didn’t die for nothing.”
He squeezed my hand. “They died so we could choose differently.”
The sun broke across the horizon. I turned to him fully. His face was half-shadow, half-light. Just like mine. Just like us.
“The Oracle warned me,” I said.
“I figured.” His thumb brushed over mine. “What did she say?”
“That bonding you would mean taking on everything. Feeling it all. Forever.”
He exhaled. “And?”
“I told her I’d carry it.”
He didn’t answer right away. Just stepped forward, his other hand rising to touch the pulse at my throat. The same place where his mark would go. The spot that still burned with phantom heat from dreams I never dared speak aloud.
“If I mark you here,” he said, voice low, “there’s no undoing it. It binds us. In body, soul, and spirit.”
I tilted my head back, exposing my neck fully. Offering him the most vulnerable part of me—not just skin, but choice.
“Then take me forward,” I whispered.
