Chapter 110 | Above the Fall | Leah
The moment the crack fully opened, the world lost all sound.
Not silence. Sound was ripped away. Like someone hit the universe's mute button. Wind, heartbeat, blood flow—all gone. Only sight remained—only that waterfall of light pouring from the crack—
light.
Not Dawnlight light, not vampire moonlight. Something older, something colder—the light of judgment. It didn't illuminate anything, it only revealed, only stripped away, only tore off every disguise from everything that existed, showing the most basic truth.
And its target—
was me.
I could feel that stare. No eyes, but sharper than any eyes. It went through my wings, through my skin, through my bones, straight to the silver blood flowing in my veins. It was reading me, studying me,—
tasting me.
"Leah—!"
Kael's voice came from far away, like bubbles rising from underwater. I wanted to answer, but my vocal cords were frozen by that stare. My body hung in the air, not flying on my own, but held up by some force, like a sacrifice being lifted to the altar.
Below, Kael was trying to stand. His body was breaking down, like a statue wearing away, but he was still moving. He reached his hand toward me, fingers grabbing at the air, trying to catch something he couldn't reach.
And I—
I was rising.
Rising toward the crack. Rising toward the Moon-Eater.
Its shape finally settled. Not a face, not a hand, not any organ you could name. It was a hole. A massive emptiness made of countless tiny whirlpools, each one swallowing light, swallowing sound, swallowing—
swallowing meaning.
The moment I got close to it, I saw. Through the Progenitor's blood, I saw what it really was.
It wasn't a living thing. It wasn't an object. It was—
a question.
A question the universe asked when it was born, never answered: When light gets too bright, who puts it out?
The Moon-Eater is the answer. It's the one who puts out the lamp. And now, I—the Silver Moon Returned, too much light—am that lamp that needs to be put out.
"No—!"
Kael's scream cut through the muted world.
That wasn't normal sound. Something deeper, a roar from the bottom of his soul. It carried three thousand years of anger, three thousand years of loneliness, three thousand years of unspoken—
love.
That roar was like a blade, cutting the force that held me up.
I fell.
Not flying, not gliding, but pure, out-of-control falling. Wind screamed under my wings, like countless knives slicing feathers. I tried to fix my position, but the Moon-Eater's aftershock still affected me, like being dizzy after drinking, like fever hallucinations.
Then, a pair of hands caught me.
Cold, shaking, but steady.
Kael.
He stood at the edge of the platform, using his body to break my fall. We both went down, him underneath, me on top. His head hit the stone slabs with a dull sound—that was the worst sound I'd ever heard, like the first crack in breaking porcelain.
"Kael—!"
I rolled over, holding his face in my hands.
His eyes were still open. Ice-blue vertical pupils were spreading out, the edges getting blurry, like ink bleeding in water.
"You—" his lips moved, voice like it came from somewhere far away, "you're too heavy—"
"Don't joke!" My tears splashed onto his face, "Don't—you can't—"
"I won't die." He said, the corner of his mouth curving slightly, that small smile barely there, like a sigh, "I promised you—before teaching you to fly—won't die—"
His head dropped to one side.
His heartbeat—through the Bloodbond—turned into something irregular, broken—noise.
"No. No. No."
I picked him up. His body was terrifyingly light, like something had been hollowed out of him. I tried to push silver energy into his body, but the Progenitor's blood fought against his dark origin, silver light hissing the moment it touched his skin, like sulfuric acid hitting ice.
"Help—" I screamed into the air around me, "Someone help me—!"
Nothing.
Ophelia was dead. The Light-Eaters had pulled back. The perfect "him" was gone. On the Spiral Spire, only me and a fading Kael remained.
And—
the Moon-Eater, coming closer.
It was nearer now. I could feel its hunger—not for flesh, but for existence. It wanted to put me out, not from hatred, but from instinct. To it, Kael and I—light and darkness reunited—were a cosmic mistake, an imbalance that had to be fixed.
Unless—
unless I became the nexus again.
Ophelia's words came back to me. Become the nexus. Connect the two networks. But the price was—losing yourself, merging into the network, becoming a bridge.
I had said no before. Because I wanted freedom, wanted choice, wanted—love.
But if I didn't do this, Kael would die. Not as some distant possibility, but right now, happening. His heartbeat was stopping. His warmth was draining away. He—
He was leaving me.
I bent down and kissed his forehead. Cold. Like pressing my lips to a tombstone.
"I'm sorry." I said, my voice barely there, but each word landed like a hammer on steel, "I promised you I wouldn't be anyone's tool. But—"
I stood up and spread my wings.
"—I can't let you die."
I flew toward the node.
Not the fake node that had tricked us, but the energy convergence point below the Moon-Eater, right at the crack's edge. That was where the two networks crashed into each other, where light and darkness tore at each other hardest. If I was going to become the nexus—a real one, not something the Light-Eaters could use—that was the only place.
Silver-white light burst from my body. Not the soft moonlight from before, but something wilder, more desperate—burning. I was burning myself. The Progenitor's blood, memories, feelings, love—all of it became fuel, driving me toward that convergence point.
"Stop—!"
A voice came from below.
Not my Kael. Another voice. Familiar, but carrying something I had never heard in it before—panic.
I looked down.
The perfect "him" stood at the platform's edge, holding my fading Kael in his arms. His ice-blue vertical pupils were no longer cold—they held something broken, chaotic—emotion.
"If you become the nexus," he shouted, his voice shredded by the wind, "he will hate you! Hate you for becoming the next Elune! Hate you for giving up your freedom to save him! You—"
"I don't care." I said.
I kept flying.
The convergence point opened up in front of me, like a mouth waiting to swallow. I reached out both hands, ready to throw myself—the Silver Moon—into that wound.
But the instant my fingertips were about to touch the convergence point—
A hand reached out from the crack.
Not the Moon-Eater. Not a Light-Eater. Not anything I had ever seen.
It was a human hand. Pale, slender, a string of silver bells around the wrist.
It grabbed my wrist.
"Don't." A voice said, clear as the ring of a silver bell, "There's another way."