Sia’s POV
Sia’s POV
“The Lunar Divide does not ask who you are. It shows you who you’ve always been.”
Crossing the veil was like walking into a memory I never lived.
There was no wind. No light. No sound.
Only color.
Silver. Violet. Black.
The stars here didn’t shine. They pulsed.
The sky wasn’t above — it wrapped around us, folding in and out of itself like breath held too long. My steps echoed against nothing, and when I reached for Kai’s hand, it was like reaching through water.
We were inside the Divide.
And it was alive.
“Where do we go?” I whispered.
Kai’s voice came slower, deeper. “She’s leading us.”
I turned—
—and saw her.
Solara.
Floating just ahead.
Her hair weightless, her eyes glowing.
But she didn’t look like my child anymore.
She looked older.
Still her.
But... not.
“She’s changing,” I said.
Kai nodded, jaw tight. “Time doesn’t work here.”
A path began to take shape beneath her — not of stone, but of memory. Scenes formed beneath her feet like reflections in water:
My face, as a child.
Kai holding me after my first transformation.
The night I bled for the first time under the moon.
They weren’t just my memories.
They were hers now.
“Solara,” I called softly.
She didn’t turn.
But she spoke.
“I remember you,” she said.
A beat.
“But not how I should.”
I stepped forward.
The path shifted.
And suddenly.
I was in a forest. Not the Hollow Vale. Somewhere else.
Wolves howled in the distance. Fire lit the sky.
And I saw her.
Not Solara.
Me.
A different version of me.
Running. Bleeding. Carrying a child.
Behind me—
A woman screamed.
Elira.
Chasing me.
And from the trees...
Kaelith.
Laughing.
I stumbled backward.
The vision cracked.
I was back in the Divide.
Kai caught me.
“What did you see?” he asked.
“I think… I think she’s not the first me,” I whispered.
He stared at me, confusion flickering.
But I knew it now.
This wasn’t just a realm of illusions.
This was ancestry.
Blood called to blood here.
And Solara was reaching backward.
“Come closer,” she said again, drifting toward a spiraling bridge made of moonlight.
We followed.
Until the Divide pulsed.
And separated us.
A wall of black mist fell between me and Kai.
I screamed. “KAI!”
He shouted something back—but I couldn’t hear him.
The Divide swallowed his voice.
And then…
The wall turned into a mirror.
And on the other side…
Was not Kai.
It was the Hollow King.
He looked like Kai.
But his eyes burned like Kaelith’s.
He smiled through cracked lips. “So this is where you came to hide.”
I backed away.
“This isn’t real.”
“No,” he said. “It’s truer than anything else. Because this is where truths come to wake up.”
The air thickened.
And then I saw it.
A wound in the sky.
And through it:
Solara.
Sitting on a throne made of woven stars.
Elira at her side.
Whispering.
Smiling.
I screamed.
“No!”
But I couldn’t reach her.
The bridge had vanished.
And in its place.
A choice.
Two doors.
One pulsed with moonlight.
The other with fire.
I fell to my knees.
The Hollow King circled me.
“Only one path leads to her,” he said. “The other leads to peace.”
“What does that mean?”
“Choose the fire, and you’ll fight for her. Choose the moon… and you’ll forget.”
Forget?
No.
Never.
I rose.
“My name is Sia Grey,” I said, fire in my chest. “And I will burn every version of myself to get her back.”
He laughed.
“Then step through.”
I chose the fire.
The heat swallowed me whole.
On the other side.
I saw Kai again.
He was on his knees, holding his head.
His veins glowed. The mark was consuming him.
“Let me go,” he whispered. “Before I turn into him.”
“No,” I said, rushing to him. “You’re still you.”
He looked at me.
Eyes torn between love and agony.
“I’m losing control.”
And then, behind him.
Solara.
Floating.
Glowing.
And fading.
She turned to us.
“I love you,” she said.
“But I can’t stay.”
“No!” I screamed.
“You don’t need to follow,” she said. “You need to remember.”
She lifted a hand.
And the world broke again.
I awoke.
On stone.
Alone.
No Kai.
No Solara.
Only a whisper in my ear.
“One of you must stay behind.”