114
114
RAVEN
The chains around me rhythmically pulsate with the shadow magic of Thane, but I can sense them growing weaker as my goddess-blood finally stirs fully awake. And each drop of blood that's dripping from the blade on my neck adds to my strength rather than weakening me, and I realize why.
"You're doing the same thing Darian did." I say to Thane, my voice taking on strange overtones that seem to echo in the stones of the fortress. You think you can command power that has slumbered for generations.”
“I have been a student in the old magic for many years,” Thane answers, his red eyes leering at Kael. “I’m clear what I’m dealing with.”
"Do you?" I allow my head to loll forward slightly, as if I’m losing strength, but in fact, I’m biding my time. "If you did, you'd know that the Moon's Daughter not only draws power—but rules it.
The temperature in the chamber plummets several more degrees, and frost to starts to creep across the ritual circle. The inscrutable pattern inscribed in the banded stone floor wavers between its muted dark shine and something foreign: a virginal light, which appears to emanate from within the rock.
I can sense Kael’s determination on our bond and his frantic love for me. But I can also feel his plan, can feel his wolf measuring distance, angles, waiting for the moment right after Thane's focus shifts.
"Kael," I whisper through the room, locking my violet eyes with his stormy gray. "Do you trust me?"
“My life,” he responds without hesitation.
“And then when you get the signal, hesitate”
Thane's hands on the knife tighten. "Enough games. You're ten seconds to kneel, Kael, or I'll kill her right now and let her bleed out over this runic circle.
“Wh-h-ha-t,” I gasp as if in sudden pain. “The ritual—something’s wrong.
"What are you talking about?" - "give me a kiss" Thane orders, but there's hesitance in his eyes.
“The goddess-blood,” I gasp, jerking my body in the kind of struggle that suggests I’m battling some unbearable force. "It's not just waking up — it's rejecting the rot. The ritual is backfiring."
It's not entirely a lie. I can sense that ancient magic in my blood answering the dark power swirling around me, but not the way Thane is anticipating. Instead of being contained and subdued, it’s moving in the opposite direction, trying to purify the sanctum of corruption.
“No way,” whispers Thane, but I notice sweat glistening across his forehead.
“You see the symbols,” I continue, in a raised voice.
“They are changing, they are returning to what those things are. You are not thwarting the prophecy — you are fulfilling it.’
Thane's gaze shoots to the ritual circle, and I watch his face go white as he realizes I'm correct. The dark characters are on the move, their sinister glows warping into silvery luminescence. And the very fortress appears to rebel against his spells.
“The Moon’s Daughter comes to bring peace…or death,” I say in a prophesied tone. “But the decision was never mine to make. It was always yours."
"What do you mean?"
I mean,” I say, my chains starting to splinter under the weight of my awakening power, “that the prophecy was misread for two thousand years. The Daughter of the Moon does not choose between peace and destruction — she lets the hearts and minds of those who would wield her power decide.
The light of understanding in Thane's eyes is suddenly replaced by anger. “So, what you’re saying is the prophecy is bait.”
“I mean the prophecy is justice.” My wrists break out of my chains with a loud snap and I fall to the floor on my haunches. "You wanted to pollute and annihilate, well that's what you're going to get. But no, not the packs — for yourself.
A silver light bursts from my body, and for a moment the entire room is filled with light that appears to emanate from the moon. Shadows, which have helped Thane as well, recoil from the light, and I hear a groan of distress, as his tether to the dark magic weakens.
"Now, Kael!" I shout.
My mate doesn't hesitate. He leaps across the chamber, defying gravity, his half-shifted, inhuman form moving impossibly fast. Thane whirls toward him, and the edge slides out of my throat even as he brings it up to defend himself.
But I'm not finished. The goddess-blood in my veins thrums with power, and I grasp at gifts that I'm only starting to comprehend. The chains around my mother evaporate at my touch and Lysandra drops to the ground, struggling to breathe but still breathing.
“Poison,” she whispers, her amethyst eyes wide with agony.
I put my hands on her shoulders, and from my fingers silver light pours into her flesh. I can feel the poison running through its system, noxious brew carefully brewed to slay its organs painfully, torturously slow. But the goddess-blood sings healing as well as death through my veins, and I let that healing flow into my mother’s emaciated frame.
"Rest," I tell her as the poison wears off and her breathing quickens. "You're safe now."
On the opposite side of the chamber, Kael and Thane pace around each other animal-like. The traitor’s shadow magic snakes down in inky whips, but they appear lesser somehow, lessened by the silver light of the room.
"You believe you have won," Thane snarls, his sword moving in enigmatic patterns through the air as ripples of dark and light. "But I have been getting ready for this moment for twenty years. I’m not going to be denied my inheritance.”
"Your birthright?" Kael’s voice is a low growl, full of malice. “Your birthright was to be in exile, and you should have remained in exile.”
"My kin constructed the Obsidian Spire before yours had entered these mountains!" Thane shouts, his burning eyes wild with fanatic zeal. We were the founding Alphas, the ones who united the packs as one. Your ancestors took what was ours.”
"If that were, the goddess-blood would have known you." I shout, and start to stand up, feeling energy in all my cells. "But it doesn't. You smack Darian, and it rejects you."
"Then I'll take it by force."
Thane drops his fight with Kael and leaps at me with the obsidian blade up in the air, poised for a death blow. I just have to forgive him for beating me unconscious, but he’s not even sorry about that little incident — and he seems to have forgotten that I’m not the helpless captive he chained to the ritual circle. I am the Daughter of the Moon, come into my full power, and I will not be a plaything for another!
I snatch his wrist before the blade touches my flesh, and where my fingers lay against his flesh, a line of silver fire flares. Thane screams as my goddess-blood revolts against his shadow magic, expelling his magic as violently as it entered.
The prophecy wasn't about choosing peace or destruction," I say, and he writhes in my hands. “It was looking at the difference between selfish ambition and selfless love. You wanted ambition, and now you are going to get what is due to you.”
But even as I talk, I can sense something else waking up inside the chamber. The tainted ritual circle, form Darian's dark magic and from my cleansing, remains active. The ancient symbols throb with energy and feel like they might be building toward some kind of climax.
"Raven," Kael cautions, his tone tight with worry. "Something's happening."
I glance down at the ritual circle and see my mistake. Cleansing that corruption, releasing my full power, I’ve unwittingly completed the ritual―not the last remnants of that to be found, since you’re clearly still getting to live. Not Thane’s version of the ritual, but the genuine article, the one penned by the first pack mothers countless centuries ago.
“The binding,” I exhale, a profound realization welling up inside me. It’s not just for awakening the Moon’s Daughter’s power. It's to make a lasting link between the goddess-blood and the Alpha's line.”
Then Thane’s eyes are so wide as he understands it. "No. The ritual wasn’t about stealing power — it was about sharing it.”
“With the proper Alpha,” I agree, my eyes meeting Kael s across the chamber. "The one that goddess-blood chose."
Out of where the ritual circle was a imposing silver light suddenly rises toward Kael like living tentacles. But instead of binding or subjugating him, the light appears to present itself, waiting for him to accept it.
“The decision is yours,” I say to my mate, and my words are prophetic. "Take the gift of goddess-blood and make our packs one not by politics, but power that flows from the moon!"
Kael eyes me up, the silver light stretching out towards him, then looks back at me. I see in his stormy gray eyes love and trust and the courage that has always defined him.
"Together?" he asks.
"Always," I reply.
He takes a step forward and puts his hand on the silver light; then the room fills with light as if the heart of the moon were in the midst of it.