Chapter 92

Chapter 92
Sera POV

I waited until the halls quieted, until the footsteps of warriors faded into the heavy silence of night. Jade had gone to handle something with the patrols.

I could still feel the heat of his grip on my arm, the echo of his words circling in my chest, protective and frightening in their certainty.

I needed air.

No.

I needed answers.

So I slipped past the sleeping guards, past the torchlight, into the older corridors where the stone walls held cold in their bones.

I moved as silently as I could, though my heart made a sound loud enough to betray me. I didn’t stop until I reached the archway hidden behind the old tapestry, the place only whispered of among the women who prayed for safe births and quick deaths.

The Moon’s shrine.

Moss glowed faintly along the floor, lighting the small chamber from below. And in the centre stood the statue of the Moon Goddess, her face veiled, her hands open as though waiting to receive something… or someone.

I stepped closer, my fingers trembling before I even knew they were shaking.

My throat tightened, and all the words I’d been swallowing finally rose.

“Why?”

My voice cracked like old wood.

And still, I forced the rest out.

“Why bind me to him? Why bring me back only to put me in his hands again? Why make my heart beat for the one who…”

The words lodged like a blade between my ribs.

The one who killed me.

My knees hit the floor before I understood I was sinking. The cold stone bit through my skin, but I barely felt it. My hands curled in my lap, useless, lost.

“I remember,” I whispered. “I remember how it felt. The cold. The end. His face.”

It wasn’t Jade’s face I saw in that moment, not this version of him but the other one. Kade. The one who held me with love and then ended me with the same hands.

And yet… here I was, bound to him again.

“What is the purpose of this?”

My voice rose, raw, desperate.

“What kind of love is this supposed to be? A lesson? A punishment? A circle I cannot escape?”

My tears fell silently, slipping down my cheeks, warm and unwanted.

“I don’t understand,” I breathed. “Tell me what to do. Tell me how to survive this. Tell me how to breathe when every moment with him feels like drowning and clinging to life at the same time. Tell me why you brought me back just to break me again.” I stayed there on my knees, waiting in that painful quiet. The silence felt like a wall closing in, pressing against my ribs, making it harder to breathe. My hands shook, my heartbeat tripped and stumbled, and I felt small, so painfully small in the presence of something I could not understand.

But then the air shifted.

A sound like a low song moved through the shrine, almost too soft to notice at first. The glow in the moss deepened, brighter, and purer, like embers suddenly fed fresh air. I lifted my head slowly, not trusting my senses, not trusting hope.

Then light came.

A soft pulse at first, then another. Each one stronger. The statue’s stone eyes seemed to catch the glow, holding it, shaping it, until the entire chamber trembled with a faint and shimmering radiance.

I drew in a breath, but the next moment, the shrine ignited.

Silver fire burst from the base of the statue, silent, soundless, sweeping upward like a tide that had waited lifetimes to break.

It didn’t burn like a normal flame. It didn’t scorch or devour. It was cold and warm all at once, like moonlight made solid. It curled around the walls, around the ceiling, around me.

And it didn’t touch me.

It wrapped around me.

I gasped, my breath catching in my throat, from knowing.

Something inside me stirred. Something I had forgotten and yet never truly lost. The fire drew closer, swirling around my body, around my mark, around the place my heart ached most.

And then I heard her speak to me.

“With love, the hand of judgement has awakened.”

Her voice was everywhere. Soft and vast. Gentle and terrible. A voice that held creation in one palm and destruction in the other. A voice that felt like comfort and warning in the same breath. I felt myself trembling again from understanding.

The Moon Goddess spoke again, the words threading into my heart like silver thread.

“Because judgement requires love as much as fire.”

The flame brightened, surrounding the statue, surrounding me, surrounding the memory of the man I had loved and the man he had become.

“You were not returned to suffer. You were returned to choose.”

My breath caught. My lips parted on a sound that wasn’t a word because there were no words big enough for what I felt.

The flames flared, then softened to a shimmer once more. The shrine dimmed, returning to its quiet, holy stillness.

Only a few strands of the silver fire remained, curling gently around my hands and arms, sinking slowly into my skin as if they had always belonged there.

When the last of the light faded, I was still kneeling. My cheeks were wet. My heart was beating too fast. My fingers glowed faintly, as though I held moonlight under my skin.

I closed my eyes and let out a shaky breath.

The goddess had answered me.