CHAPTER 139 — THE MOMENT I BREAK
CHAPTER 139 — THE MOMENT I BREAK
The tearing wasn’t physical.
It wasn’t something I could hold together with my hands or breathe through like pain.
It was deeper—
a ripping inside my soul,
like someone was peeling layers of me apart
and deciding which half I was allowed to keep.
“Asher—” I tried to say, but the word dissolved into a trembling gasp.
The shadow’s fingers—cold, weightless, wrong—trailed along my jaw, guiding my face toward its hollow white eyes.
My body obeyed.
Not because I wanted to—
but because the curse was inside me,
pushing, tugging, twisting my will.
“Asher…” I whispered again, weaker.
He stumbled forward, every breath a struggle, eyes blazing gold-red, veins glowing with raw power.
“Luna—LUNA—look at me. NOT at it.”
His voice cracked with desperation so sharp it sliced through the air.
I tried.
I really did.
But the curse whispered inside my mind like a lover stroking the inside of my skull.
Do not fight me…
Fighting hurts you…
Let go and the pain ends…
A whimper escaped me before I could stop it.
The shadow nodded, satisfied.
“She is ready.”
“No—” Asher lunged—
—but the ground beneath him split open, black tendrils whipping out and wrapping around his legs, yanking him down to his knees.
He roared, claws slashing the air, power flaring so hot the soil smoked—
but the curse kept tightening.
“Asher!” I cried, reaching for him, my fingers clawing at the air.
The shadow’s grip on my jaw tightened—just enough to freeze me.
“Do not look away,” it commanded.
My head snapped back toward it with no control of my own.
“No—NO!” Asher’s voice broke, raw and unfiltered. “Luna—FIGHT IT! FIGHT—FIGHT—LUNA—PLEASE!”
The begging in his tone ripped through me like a blade.
But the curse was stronger.
A cold wave washed through my chest, numbing my ribs, my breath, my pulse.
My vision flickered—Asher’s face going in and out of focus.
“Stop,” I whispered. “Please—stop—”
“Breaking feels like dying,” the shadow said simply, “but it is only the fall before becoming mine.”
Another tear inside me.
Wider.
Burning cold.
I gasped, hand flying to my chest as if I could hold myself together.
Asher tore at the shadows holding him—his claws ripping through them, body trembling with fury and fear.
“TAKE ME!” he roared. “TAKE ME INSTEAD—JUST LET HER GO!”
The forest went silent.
Even the curse paused.
The shadow’s head turned slowly toward him.
“You?” it murmured. “You are already half mine.”
Asher went still—
his eyes widening just a fraction
because the curse had never spoken that truth aloud until now.
But then it smiled.
A horrible, hollow twist of darkness.
“She is the other half.”
“No…” Asher whispered, devastation crawling up his voice. “No—don’t do this—don’t touch her—take EVERYTHING from me instead—just don’t touch her—”
The shadow ignored him.
It lifted its other hand, placing it over my heart.
And everything inside me collapsed.
My knees buckled.
My breath vanished.
My vision went white at the edges.
The split inside me ripped fully open—
a violent, agonizing wrench that felt like someone tearing my soul into two clean halves.
I screamed—
a sound ripped from a place I didn’t know existed.
Asher’s answering roar nearly shook the sky.
“LUNA—LUNA—STAY WITH ME—STAY—PLEASE—FIGHT—DON’T LEAVE ME—”
But I couldn’t hear him anymore.
Not over the darkness flooding my mind.
Not over the piece of me being dragged toward the shadow.
I felt myself tipping—
falling—
slipping.
My hand reached toward Asher without my permission.
His claws scraped the ground as he lunged again, every tendon straining—
—but he couldn’t reach me.
I felt the final thread inside me stretch—
—and snap.
Everything inside me went bright, then dark, then nothing at all.
Asher’s scream was the last tether holding me to the world—
“LUNAAAA!”
And then the darkness took me.