Chapter 184: Sia’s POV

“When the child of fire calls the stars by name, the sky must answer… or burn.”

The clearing was silent after Solara vanished.

No flames.

No wind.

Just… stillness.

The kind that seeps into your bones and whispers you’re too late.

I dropped to the scorched earth where she’d floated.

Nothing remained.

Not her cry.

Not her heat.

There was only a small circle that burnt into the moss, with silver and fire lines flowing through it.

Kai stood next to me, transfixed, with his chest heaving and his hands shaking.

“She said ‘Enough,’” he murmured.

I looked up at him.

“She didn’t just disappear, Kai.”

He met my eyes. “She ascended.”

Kiara knelt beside the circle, her face pale.

“She opened a threshold,” she said softly. “One I thought was still sealed.”

“A portal?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Worse. A path. One that only she could access. Because only she remembers its name.”

Kai turned toward her sharply. “What path?”

Kiara hesitated.

Then she whispered: “The Lunar Divide.”

I shivered.

Every story I’d ever been told as a child screamed that name.

The place where moonlight was torn in half.

Where the Moon Goddess herself once cast out her twin in order to preserve the balance of day and night.

Where forgotten souls went to whisper… and wait.

“No one can survive in the Divide,” I said. “Not even spirits.”

“She’s not a spirit,” Kiara answered. “She’s the bridge.”

We didn't have time to fight.

The woodland groaned again, and the sky changed so quickly that I fell.

The stars above had moved.

Shifted.

Rearranged into a single shape — a sigil.

Kai swore under his breath. “She left a map.”

“No,” I said, heart pounding. “She left us a door.”

Within the hour, Kiara had deciphered the constellation and led us deeper into the woods — past the Veil’s border, across a stream that ran backwards, and into a place that had no name on any map.

There, beneath a hill of sleeping stones, we found it.

A broken altar.

Carved from obsidian and moon-cracked bone.

Still glowing.

Still warm.

And waiting.

“She came through here,” Kiara confirmed. “But you can’t follow her yet.”

“I’m not waiting,” I snapped. “She’s alone.”

“She’s not,” Kiara said, her tone darkening. “That’s the problem.”

Before I could respond, Kai stumbled.

He caught himself on the altar, groaning in pain.

I rushed to him.

“Kai?”

Under his skin, his veins were burning dimly, like flames flowing around.

He tightened his jaw.

“It’s the mark,” he gasped. “It’s pulling me. Tearing me in two.”

Kiara’s face hardened. “The Hollow King’s legacy. The longer Solara remains in that realm, the stronger the imbalance becomes.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means,” she said, “you might have to choose between your daughter… and your mate.”

“No,” I breathed.

I wouldn’t accept that.

Not after everything we’d survived.

Not now.

“I’ll go alone,” I said. “Into the Divide.”

Kiara stepped forward. “It may cost you everything, Sia.”

“I don’t care.”

"I'm not letting you go alone," Kai murmured, getting up even though it hurt.

“You won’t make it,” Kiara warned. “Not with the mark burning inside you.”

He turned to her, eyes blazing.

“I’ll die before I let her walk into that place alone.”

But it wasn’t Kiara who answered him.

It was a voice that came from the woods.

Soft.

Ancient.

And female.

“You don’t get to choose anymore.”

We spun around.

An ancient woman came out of the fog. Her coat was made of starlight, and her eyes were pale as frost in the morning.

Kiara paled. “Luneth.”

I stared. “Who…?”

“She’s the Moon’s last Seer,” Kiara whispered. “She shouldn’t even exist.”

Luneth raised a trembling hand.

And the altar flared to life.

“You seek the Divide,” Luneth said. “But it is not a place. It is a cost.”

I stepped forward. “I’ll pay it.”

Luneth looked at me — not with judgment, but sorrow.

“You already have. But the debt isn’t yours alone.”

She turned to Kai.

“It’s his pain that opens the way.”

Kai flinched. “What?”

“You carry the Hollow King’s legacy. But more than that—you carry his regret.”

Luneth reached into her robes and drew out a blade made of mirrorglass.

She handed it to me.

“This will cut the veil. But only if wielded by truth.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Luneth touched my temple.

And suddenly, I saw it.

Solara—standing alone in a sky made of ruins.

A throne of light before her.

And a shadow behind it.

A woman’s voice.

Familiar.

Soft.

“Do you remember what I gave up for you?”

I staggered back, blinking.

“She’s not alone,” I whispered.

“She never was,” Luneth replied.

“Who’s with her?”

But Luneth didn’t answer.

She simply turned and walked into the fog.

We stood in silence.

Then Kai reached out and took my hand.

“Ready?” he asked.

I nodded.

And together, we stepped forward.

Toward the altar.

Toward the Divide.

Toward our daughter.

As the mirrorblade touched the stone, light cracked upward into the sky.

A tear split the air in front of us.

And for one moment, I heard her.

Solara.

Singing.

In a language I’d never learned.

But still understood.

A mother’s lullaby.