Chapter 66 THE RETURN OF THE FLAME
You will rise,” she murmurs.
“And you will fall.”
I swallow.
“You will love.”
Her eyes soften.
“And you will lose.”
My vision blurs.
“You will burn.”
The air trembles.
“And you will save.”
My heart cracks under the weight of the prophecy.
My lips tremble. “And Damien?”
She closes her eyes for the briefest moment, the glow around her dimming.
“That,” she murmurs, “will be your greatest wound.”
My breath stutters painfully.
The pool of water brightens so intensely I have to shield my eyes with my arm. The glow grows until it is no longer light but pressure, filling the clearing, filling me.
“It is time,” the Goddess whispers.
“Time for what?”
“For the flame to awaken.”
The light erupts, swallowing me whole. I scream as power rips through my body like lightning, tearing open every nerve, every bone, every memory.
I gasp his name, "Damien" once, before the world becomes white fire.
And then I break.
Light devours me.
It rushes into every pore, every scar, every trembling inch of me like liquid lightning. My lungs seize. My throat is raw from screaming, but the sound tears out of me anyway—ragged, primal, ripped straight from my soul. The Moonfire surges beneath my skin, no longer an ember but a sun blazing to life.
I feel myself splitting apart.
My back arches so violently I swear something cracks. A column of silver fire erupts from my spine, shooting into the sky like a beacon summoning the heavens. The air trembles. Leaves shiver. The earth beneath me pulses and fractures in glowing lines, forming a spiderweb of light stretching outward from where I kneel.
I am burning alive.
But I cannot die.
“Let it in,” the Goddess whispers, her voice woven into the fire. “Let it claim you.”
I try to breathe. I can’t.
The light is everywhere. Inside my veins, in the cavities of my bones, behind my eyelids, beneath my tongue. My skin glows so brightly I can see straight through it, every bone etched in silver.
“Stop,” I choke out. “Please—”
The fire answers with a violent surge.
I collapse onto the glowing moss, fingers clawing at the ground as the heat ravages me. My nails break against the earth. Tears turn to steam the moment they form.
It feels like drowning in light.
It feels like being carved open from the inside.
It feels like becoming something I was never meant to survive.
Then, suddenly the fire stills.
The world seems to inhale.
And I inhale with it.
Slowly, painfully, I push myself upright.
The forest is dead silent.
Even the air refuses to move.
I stand, trembling, my entire body buzzing with a force I cannot contain. My hair floats, weightless, as if submerged underwater. Each strand shimmers with molten silver. My skin glows faintly, veins lit like starlit rivers beneath a thin veil of flesh.
I take a step forward.
The ground brightens under my foot.
My reflection catches my eye in the still pool.
I freeze.
That girl, the rejected mate, the broken thing, is gone.
In her place stands something otherworldly.
Something too bright, too sharp, too alive.
My eyes glow like two burning crescents, their irises swirling silver and white. My pupils are thin, shining slivers. Every breath sends ripples of light through the air around me.
I reach for the water with shaking fingers.
The surface ripples not from my touch, but from the power bleeding off me in waves.
A flash of vision slams into me.
—wolves howling beneath a fractured moon
—cities crumbling under silver fire
—my hands dripping with light that destroys everything it touches
—Damien falling to his knees, reaching for me
—Kael screaming my name in rage and regret
—mountains cracking open
—oceans boiling
—the moon splitting in two
The visions hit like a punch to my chest.
“No!” I yank my hand back. “Stop! Enough!”
The water stills instantly.
I stagger backward, panting. My heart hammers against my ribs so hard it hurts.
What am I becoming?
What have I already become?
I wrap my arms around myself, shaking. The Moonfire hums beneath my skin, restless and hungry, as if tasting the world for the first time.
A soft rustling makes me look up.
The trees are moving.
Not from wind because there is no wind.
They are bending toward me.
Their branches lower as if they are bowing.
Their glowing veins pulse in harmony with the beat of my heart.
The forest recognizes me.
Not as prey.
Not as trespasser.
As kin.
A protector.
A danger.
An heir.
“This isn’t right,” I whisper. “This can’t be right.”
A branch gently brushes my arm, warm, comforting.
“Don’t,” I breathe, stepping back. “Don’t touch me. I’ll hurt you.”
Moonlight flickers. The tree doesn’t move away.
A soft cry escapes my throat. I clutch my hair, pulling at the roots, desperate to anchor myself.
“Damien…”
His name breaks out of me like a sob.
The moment I speak it, the Moonfire reacts, pulsing so hard it knocks the air from my lungs. My vision sparks white. A wave of heat rushes through me.
“No,” I gasp. “No, not him. Please not him.”
A resonance ripples outward from the clearing, a pulse I feel in my teeth. The power surges again bigger and louder like a heart calling to another heart across the world.
Damien will feel this.
He will sense this transformation.
He will come.
And if he comes…
The vision flashes again: Damien reaching for me, and my light tearing him apart.
“I can’t let him find me,” I whisper. “I can’t.”
I take a step back from the pool.
Another.
My knees tremble. I almost fall.
“Damien,” I choke out, “forgive me.”
The woods respond.
A low, resonant howl echoes through the trees.
I spin toward the sound, heart slamming against my ribs. It’s not a normal howl. It's not a pack call, not an Alpha command. This one is deeper, older, vibrating through the earth like the rumble of distant thunder.
The shadows between the trees shift.
Something emerges.
Huge.
Silent.
Ancient.
A wolf the size of a horse steps into the clearing, its fur made of living night, absorbing the moonlight rather than reflecting it. Its eyes glow silver—not wild, not hostile, but aware.
Intelligent.
Connected.
My breath catches.
“Who… what are you?” I whisper.
The wolf lowers its head slowly, almost reverently.
And then in a voice that is not a voice, that speaks directly into my bones, I hear it.
"Guardian."
My wolf stiffens inside me.
"Watcher."
The Moonfire trembles.
"Shadow."
I stumble back a step. “Shadow? Damien’s shadow?”