Chapter 136 Hundred and forty one
“Don’t move,” Ryder said, his voice low enough that only she could hear it, yet sharp enough to slice through the smoke around them.
Sienna didn’t obey. “If you think I’m letting you face anything alone again, you can forget it.”
He shot her a look, half fury, half fear, all love, but he didn’t repeat the command. They stood shoulder to shoulder, blades raised, their breaths uneven as the shadow in the archway grew larger. The firelight stretched long across the stones, bending around the figure like it feared touching her.
“Sienna…” Ryder’s voice faltered, and she heard something in it she’d never heard before, not hesitation, not rage, not even pain.
Reverence.
A cold wind swept through the broken courtyard. The flames bowed sideways, bending in worship or terror. Sienna’s blade trembled as the figure stepped through the fractured archway, her presence warping the air with every movement.
“Do you greet me with weapons?” the woman asked, her voice echoing like a whisper inside a cathedral whose walls had long forgotten sunlight.
Sienna gripped her sword tighter. “Why are you here?”
The woman stepped fully into the light. Her feet didn’t touch the earth. Her gown shimmered like liquid moonstone, each ripple emitting a faint glow. Her hair fell down her back in strands that looked like silver smoke woven with starlight. Her eyes were ancient, far too ancient, and when she looked at Ryder, something inside him recoiled and reached for her at the same time.
Lunaris.
The goddess no longer hidden in whispers, visions, or wandering shadows.
She stood before them.
“Put your weapons down,” Lunaris said, and though her tone was soft, it cracked the stone beneath their feet as if the world itself rushed to obey.
Ryder didn’t lower his blade.
Sienna didn’t breathe.
Lunaris tilted her head, observing them with a strange mixture of amusement and disappointment. “You stand together,” she murmured. “Even after all I have done.”
“You cursed us,” Sienna said. “You made him bleed for loving me.”
“And you,” the goddess replied, her eyes shifting to Sienna, “you broke the balance by loving what you should have feared.”
Ryder stepped half a pace in front of Sienna. “If you touch her, ”
The goddess lifted a hand.
Ryder’s body seized.
He dropped to one knee, choking on air that suddenly weighed as much as stone. His blade slipped from his grip and clattered helplessly onto the ground beside him. Sienna lunged forward to catch him, but Lunaris flicked two fingers and Sienna was thrown back into the crumbling wall. The impact stole her breath, but she pushed herself upright, eyes locked on Ryder.
“Stop,” Sienna whispered. “Please.”
Lunaris watched her struggle, curiosity flickering like a flame. “Why do you beg for him?” she asked. “This wolf has been the doom of every life I gave you.”
Sienna’s lip curled, the fury she tried so often to repress flooding to the surface. “Because I love him.”
Lunaris blinked once.
Ryder inhaled sharply, painfully, as if that single sentence broke through whatever hold the goddess had on him. He pushed against the invisible force, claws scraping against the stone, veins darkening beneath his skin.
Lunaris looked down at him. “And you… you love her still.”
He spat blood on the ground and lifted his head. “You can tear my heart out, and it won’t change that.”
Lunaris considered him with an expression almost too soft to be real. “What a foolish creature you are,” she said. “Every version of you… always the same. Always running toward her, never away from her. Always willing to break the world instead of letting her fall.”
Her gown fluttered as though stirred by an unseen breeze. “And yet,” she continued, “every time she chooses you… the world suffers.”
Ryder snarled, forcing himself to his feet. The curse coiled inside him like a serpent, hissing beneath his ribs. “Then take me. Not her.”
Sienna’s breath caught. “Ryder, ”
“Take me,” he repeated, louder now. “End the curse. End whatever you started. Just leave her out of it.”
Lunaris stared at him in silence, long enough that even the flames outside seemed to hold their breath.
Finally, she smiled.
Not kindly.
Not cruelly.
Just knowingly.
“You offer your life so easily,” she murmured. “Is it because you wish for peace… or because you finally accept that loving her is beyond you?”
“Don’t twist this,” he growled.
“I don’t have to twist anything,” Lunaris replied. “I watched you through centuries. You followed her through every lifetime. You killed for her. You died for her. But you never saved her.”
Sienna flinched.
Ryder froze.
Lunaris stepped closer, her bare feet leaving trails of silver dust across the ruined tiles. She looked past Ryder, past the ruins, past the smoke drifting through the air.
“Look at the moon,” she said softly.
Sienna glanced up.
The moon, their cursed moon, flickered like a dying lantern. Its light pulsed in uneven beats, erratic, frantic, frightened.
“Your love weakens it,” Lunaris continued. “Your defiance cracks it. Every moment you stand together pushes the world toward ruin.”
Ryder’s voice ripped from his chest. “Then tell us what to do!”
Lunaris turned her gaze to Sienna.
Sienna felt her bones turn cold.
“You must choose,” Lunaris said. “Love him… or save your world.”
The ground under them trembled.
Cracks spread outward, glowing faintly as if molten silver filled the fractures.
“You expect me to choose?” Sienna whispered, breath shaking as she stepped forward. “After everything you put us through? After tearing us apart? After stealing every chance we ever had?”
Lunaris watched her without blinking. “You were always meant to choose.”
“I won’t choose,” Sienna said.
“You will,” Lunaris replied. “Because the world will make you.”
A gust of cold wind blew in from the courtyard, carrying the distant sound of soldiers shouting, steel clashing, wolves howling. The rebellion had spread into the deeper parts of the Citadel, their enemies were drawing closer.
Lunaris raised her hand.
The moonlight dimmed.
“Sienna,” Ryder said quietly, his voice suddenly hoarse. “Don’t listen to her.”
Sienna stepped beside him, gripping her blade again. “I’m not leaving you.”
“You might have to.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I won’t.”
Lunaris lowered her gaze to Sienna’s hand wrapped around the sword hilt. “You fight for him as if your heart has never known fear.”
“It knows fear,” Sienna said. “It fears losing him.”
The goddess’s face softened for a single, haunting moment. “Then your fear will be your undoing.”
Lightning split across the sky, jagged and silver. The moon flared, brief, blinding, then dimmed again.
Something cracked.
Not in the sky.
Inside Ryder.
He staggered, grabbing his chest. The curse flared violently, veins lighting beneath his skin like molten threads. His eyes darkened, shifting, flickering between rage and agony.
“Ryder, ” Sienna reached for him.
He recoiled.
“Sienna, get back, ” he gasped, but the words fractured, splintering into broken breaths.
The curse surged.
He dropped to one knee.
Lunaris watched with an expression unreadable. “You see, child,” she murmured to Sienna, “love is the cage. Not the curse.”
Sienna’s heart slammed against her ribs. She pushed past Ryder’s raised hand, ignoring his desperate attempt to keep her away. “I don’t care what you say,” she told the goddess. “I won’t leave him.”
Lunaris tilted her head. “Then you will doom him.”
The flames outside roared higher. Shadows stretched across the floor. The moon pulsed faster now, as if gasping for air.
“Tell me what you want,” Sienna demanded. “Tell me why you are really here.”
The goddess turned slowly, her gaze lifting toward the dying moon overhead.
“I am here,” she said, her voice soft and bone-deep, “to witness the moment your hearts decide the fate of every living thing.”
Sienna froze.
Ryder, shaking, forced himself to his feet again.
The air around them turned thin, cold, trembling.
Lunaris lifted her hand.
A single beam of moonlight pierced the sky, striking the courtyard in a column of blinding silver.
“Choose well,” Lunaris whispered.
And then the beam widened,
, swallowing everything.