Chapter 218: See You in a Spell

Chapter 218: See You in a Spell

\[The Moon Goddess\]

My children gather in three places, the past, the present and the future. The Alpha King and his Witch Queen, along with their companions–the Dark Prince and his Lady Death, the True Knight and his Maiden Luna, each couple making one of the points of the eternal triangle of change. The King and Queen take the beacon of hope in their hands, lighting the way, bringing the others into the new reality that together, as a circuit, they create in their minds and hearts.

A new path. A new chance.

As I watch from above, unable to touch more than their hearts, it begins again, like so many times before. Around and around in a cycle. These destined pairs dance along the threads of fate that weave their hearts into a tapestry both bright with light and heavy with purpose and moments of regret.

But this is the way it is with life. It is a making…and an unmaking. Both are the same, in the greater scheme of time. A cycle ever completing itself. What has happened before might happen again.

Let’s see where this path takes us. Maybe they’ll surprise me this time.

In three cities, connected by their shared vision, but separated by distance, the lines are drawn and the runes are raised to cast THE GREAT SPELL. As the moon reaches its zenith, I listen to the prayer song of their casting, reshaping reality to the wills of their hearts, moved by the beauty of their love and magic.

Taking her mate’s hand, the Queen guides her King to a place between the living and the dead, drifting beyond the veil to lead the spell from a realm that doesn’t quite exist.

“It has begun,” she declares, raising her head skyward as light shoots from her like a beacon, drifting to the two other pairs of lovers—a signal for the spell to start.

As she falls to her knees, her mate catches her and together they lie in a bed of roses that spring to life to create a brier to cradle them. As they move together as one, the desert, once lined with the bodies of the fallen, fades into a vision of something else, something that the three couples create together.

“Grant us this future,” she prays with her words and body. “Give us this peace. Help your children find one another again, both sides of the moon, wolf and witch, united once again.”

I want to reach out to her, to tell her that I want nothing more than to grant this wish–but I am a goddess, and I cannot speak to mortals. I can urge, I can present opportunities, I can even open a way, but in the end the choice is theirs.

It always has been.

As their love grows, their light increases until there is nothing but the magic of their love and the eternal light springing from their union.

But they are not alone.

To the north, the Prince and his mate bring death in their wake, burning away what is rotten from the world, paving a path, offering the old evils as food for fresh beginnings. They travel from the town where they started their destruction, taking their violent justice into the earth itself. Sealed in a tomb-like cave, they say the rites, and in the center of a temple made for this purpose by their intentions, they face one another, seeing the other’s flaws.

And loving them just the same.

Calyx presses his hand to Amy’s waist, moving lower to trace the violent line made by the knife that cut her motherhood from her body. She will never birth another child–neither witch nor pup. Her womb is scarred and barren, her ability to mother lost with the soul of the child she discarded.

The prince sees this, but does not mourn the loss of the children they will never have. Instead, he fills her with the light of his passion, loving her as she is. He has only ever wanted her, not what she could give him, but for who she is and how she loves him—truly and with her whole heart. Even before he knew her true name, he could feel the beauty of her soul. Like him, she was a broken vessel. And like him, still worthy of love. For Calyx Moon, her trust was the greatest gift he could ever receive.

“Let’s dream together,” Amaryllis reaches her hands to touch Calyx’s face. “Kiss me, Husband. Make love to me like we are creating a new life.”

As he enters her deepest self, they dream together of a city that only existed on paper in the well-drawn notes of her father’s vision for a utopia where all the children of the moon could live in peace. As the Witch Queen and her King build the power needed to recast their flawed world and reshape it into something better—a place where all of them could live without fear.

A world where lost souls like them won't be beyond hope. Where no child will be seen as too dangerous to live, only to be wanted as a weapon. A place where children like them would have had a place to grow and thrive.

"Destroy it all," she moans as they thrust together. "Remake me, Calyx. Remake everything."

Finally, to the west, Rudolph and Hazel Forrester, the knight and his bride, lie together in the rooftop garden. The packhouse is asleep, my power bringing a moment of respite as they rest within the security of a strong leader and a clear future. It is a peace that they created together, by being strong enough to claim their lost people.

A canopy of stars sparkles above them as the moon casts my heavenly light on their glistening bodies. They are so deeply blended, their hearts racing with the power of their union that they do not feel my celestial love warming their bodies as they burn for one another, letting the world slip away. They do not speak with words, but with touches as she opens her body and soul to him.

Under his gentle caresses, power equalizes between them with overflowing life as my eternal strength captured by the spell is blended with his connection to all the packs on the continent through his alpha king, and her tie to the forces of nature. It is impossible to raise so much power without blessing the babe, and as their pup absorbs the force of the spell she grows stronger too. Gifted. Their daughter will be born an oracle, a rare hybrid, goddess-touched with potential.

The future may need her insight, in case the casting fails in unexpected ways. A guide for a new path someday, she will be the first wolf in centuries to truly hear my voice and see the threads of fate that connect all my children.

But neither one of them knows this yet.

That discovery can wait.

At this moment, Luna Hazel and Alpha Rudolph are caught up in one another, the power of creation spreading from them like light from a torch. Her power spins around them, crackling like lightning, booming like thunder, flooding the world with fresh hope as fresh raindrops scatter, tapping against the glass roof with the pitter-patter of new beginnings.

From the desert, new life will spring.

“The rain brings her blessings,” Hazel's eyes shine brightly as her chest shakes with laughter as above them, rain falls not just in Crescent City, but in the mountains and on the vast plains of the desert, spreading in a wave of power as it envelops the continent.

And underneath it all, the Children of the Moon, my children, hold each other tight, sensing the electric spark of change. Witch, wolf, and hybrid finally joined as one people under my bright light.

And the spell says:

"Come together now. Again like we were before. One people, beautiful in our differences, stronger because of our diversity. Because we are all Children of the Moon."

Your hearts are true and your intentions are pure.

Let’s try it this way for a spell.

Your wish has been granted.

Wake up, children. See the new world you have created.

Because from the end, a new beginning starts.

Right now.