Chapter 70 The Blue Moon
Daevir's POV
I was standing in the woods when I realised something was wrong.
The trees pressed in too tightly, their trunks blackened, as if they had been burned and left to rot. No stars pierced the sky. No wind stirred the leaves. The silence was so complete it rang in my ears, heavy and suffocating, as if the world itself had stopped breathing.
I looked down.
I was still wearing my crown.
Gold circled my brow, cold and heavy, its familiar weight grounding and mocking all at once. My imperial robes draped my body, rich with embroidery and jewels that caught no light because there was none to catch. I lifted my hands before me, and those were the only things I could see. Pale. Human. Trembling.
Everything else was swallowed by darkness.
"Hello?" My voice cracked, swallowed immediately, as if the forest devoured sound as greedily as light.
Then the sky shifted.
A glow bled through the black canopy above, slow and deliberate, like an eye opening. I tilted my head back, breath catching in my throat as the moon revealed itself.
It was enormous.
Too close. Too large.
And blue.
Not silver. Not white. A deep, bruised blue, luminous and wrong, casting an unnatural light that made the trees stretch and warp like twisted bones. I had seen countless moons, read omens written in the heavens, but never had I seen a moon like this.
With its light came revelation.
The forest floor emerged in sickening clarity, and so did the bodies.
They lay everywhere.
My men.
Imperial guards still clad in armour, their sigils rusted and cracked. Some sprawled face-down in the mud, others frozen mid-scream, mouths stretched wide in silent agony. Flesh sagged from bone. Eyes had been pecked away or eaten clean, leaving dark, hollow sockets that seemed to stare at me anyway.
The smell hit me next.
Rot.
Sweet and choking.
I gagged, bile burning my throat, as I staggered backward, only to feel my heel bump into something soft.
I looked down.
A body collapsed beneath my foot, skin splitting like wet parchment as maggots poured out in writhing waves, spilling over my boots, crawling between my toes, up my legs. I screamed and tried to jump away.
And couldn't.
My feet were glued to the earth.
I pulled, strained, my muscles screaming as panic clawed up my spine. The ground held me fast, cold and unforgiving, as if it had claimed me already.
"Run," my mind begged.
My body refused.
A slow clap echoed through the trees.
Once.
Twice.
Measured. Amused.
I turned.
Theron stood behind me, untouched by decay or shadow, his armour pristine, his dark hair loose around his shoulders. Moonlight painted his face in blue and silver, sharpening his features into something cruelly beautiful.
He smiled.
The same damned smile he'd worn all his life; half charm, half menace.
"Miss me, brother?" he asked lightly, as though we stood in a palace corridor and not among the dead.
Rage surged through me, hot and desperate.
I reached for my sword.
My fingers closed around the hilt, and it crumbled.
Steel disintegrated into grey ash, pouring through my hands, drifting to the ground like funeral dust. I stared, horror stealing my breath, as the last of it vanished.
Theron laughed softly.
"Oh, Daevir," he said, shaking his head. "You were never meant to wield it."
A roar thundered through the woods.
Footsteps pounded the earth, branches snapping as figures burst through the trees, weapons raised, eyes wild. Relief surged through me for a heartbeat.
Until I recognised them.
My people.
Farmers, soldiers, merchants. Men and women bearing spears, axes, and torches. Their faces were twisted with hatred, their mouths open as they screamed my name, not in praise, but in fury.
"Traitor!" "Usurper!" "Monster!"
I tried to speak, to command, to explain, but my voice came out as a growl.
A deep, animal sound.
Confused, I looked down at myself.
Silver fur coated my arms, thick and gleaming beneath the moonlight. My fingers elongated into claws, sharp and curved. My chest expanded painfully as my bones shifted, cracking, reshaping.
I wasn't human.
I was a wolf.
Terror, unlike anything I had ever known, tore through me.
"Kill the wolf!" someone screamed.
The shout ignited them.
They charged.
An arrow struck my shoulder, the impact knocking the breath from my lungs. Another tore into my side. Pain exploded through me, white-hot and blinding. I tried to run, to fight, but the ground still held me fast.
I met Theron's gaze one last time.
He was smiling.
The final arrow pierced my heart.
Agony consumed me…
And I woke with a violent gasp, sweat soaking my body, my heart hammering as if it might tear itself free from my chest.
And for a moment, in the darkness of my chamber, I could swear I still saw the blue moon watching me.
But it wasn't. The moon was silver as always, and it had only been a dream. I rested my hands on my chest, trying to still my breathing.
"Daevir," a voice behind me made the hair at the back of my head stand erect.
I swiftly turned around, battle-ready, but was shaken by what I saw.
It was Catherine, next to me on the bed, naked.
Her red hair was laid down, cascading in rolling waves over her slender, pale body. Her breasts were big and firm, her waist tiny, and her hips curvy.
She is a woman in her own right, a very attractive one. She sat cross-legged, her arm resting on her hip, the other on the bed, supporting her weight as she looked at me with a sly smile.
Her blue eyes glittered in the light, and I felt a sweet pang of longing.
"You left the ceremony before we could fulfil tradition. I thought to bring it to you." Catherine said in a soft, hoarse voice.
My blood boiled.