Chapter 32 The Gates That Know Blood

Chapter 32 THE DREAM THAT WASN’T HERS
Sleep did not come easily.
It came like an ambush.
One moment, Aria was sitting on the edge of her bed, bare feet on cold stone, fingers pressed to the pulse at her wrist as if she could physically calm the power under her skin.
The next—
Dark.
But not the dark of her chamber.
This one tasted wrong.
Old.
Heavy.
Like burned incense and dried blood.
She knew, instantly, that she was dreaming.
She also knew, just as instantly—
This dream was not hers.
She stood in a narrow corridor lit by guttering candles embedded directly into stone. Their flames burned low and greasy, casting warped shadows on rough walls. The air was thick with smoke and something sour beneath it.
She looked down.
Her hands were wrong.
Too big. Knuckles scarred. Fingers ink-stained and calloused in the pattern of someone who had written more than they had swung a blade.
Masculine.
Older.
Not hers.
Her heart clenched.
No.
She lifted a hand to her face.
Her skin felt unfamiliar.
Her jaw was wrong.
Her hair—longer than Roman’s, shorter than a priest’s—brushed the back of her neck.
When she spoke, the voice that came out of her mouth was not her own.
“I told you,” it murmured, low and rough-edged. “The moon was never meant to choose for us.”
The words echoed down the corridor, bouncing off stone.
That voice—
She knew it.
She had heard it from Jerome’s throat. From Torn’s. From the hollow emptiness in the cell.
The Caller.
She was inside his memory.
Inside his body.
The awareness made her stomach heave. She tried to pull away, to wrench her consciousness out, but the dream held tight.
No.
Not the dream.
He held tight.
At the end of the corridor, a heavy wooden door waited, bound in iron. Strange symbols had been carved into the frame—old, sharp-edged, not the soft curves of moon-priest runes.
Her hand—his hand—reached out and brushed one.
The mark thrummed under her fingertips.
It felt like biting cold and burning at the same time.
“Open,” he said.
Not to the door.
To the mark.
It obeyed.
The wood shivered.
The lock clicked.
The door swung inward.
The room beyond was circular, low-ceilinged, lined with shelves carved directly into stone. No windows. No banners. No sign of royalty or church.
A table stood in the center, littered with scrolls, knives, broken seals, and small bowls of ash.
At the far side, a man sat on a stool, head bowed, robe dark, hands bound behind him.
A priest.
His once-white collar was stained with dried blood.
The Caller stepped forward.
Aria wanted to scream.
Wanted to stop.
Wanted to close her eyes, to refuse to see what he had done, what he had been.
She saw anyway.
“My Lord,” the priest whispered, lifting his head.
His eyes were swollen, lips cracked.
“My lord, please—”
“Don’t call me that,” the Caller said.
His own voice sounded different here.
Younger.
Less amused.
More…
Human.
The priest swallowed.
“You promised you would not defy the moon,” he rasped. “It chose. It wrote. It sealed. You read the words yourself—”
“I translated them,” the Caller corrected softly. “The moon does not write. We do.”
He stepped closer.
Aria felt the shift of muscle, the pull of breath in lungs she didn’t own.
“This isn’t defiance,” the Caller continued. “This is correction.”
The priest’s breath hitched.
“Correction?” he echoed.
“You misread the line,” the Caller said.
He turned to the table, fingers sifting through the scrolls until he found one. The parchment was old, edges frayed.
Aria recognized the script.
Not the language.
The hand.
It looked like the marginal notes in the prophecy book.
Sharp strokes.
Dark ink.
He unrolled the scroll, weighting its corners with knives.
“You did not listen when the old texts warned you,” he murmured. “You were too eager to see crowns.”
The priest strained against his bonds.
“You…you can’t change what was written,” he said. “What’s done is done. The blood eclipse marked her. She belongs to the moon. She belongs—”
“Belongs?” the Caller interrupted.
His voice went quiet.
Too quiet.
“To who?”
“The prophecy,” the priest whispered. “To the will that chose her.”
The Caller smiled.
It wasn’t cruel.
It was sad.
“You fetishize will,” he said. “As if the sky has thoughts. As if fire has desires. As if words that we wrote are suddenly holy because we forgot who held the ink.”
He stepped around the table.
The priest flinched.
“We gave it the first Luna,” the Caller said. “We bent a woman to a story we half-understood. We watched her burn while calling it devotion.”
He stopped directly in front of the bound man.
Aria could smell the priest’s fear.
“And now,” the Caller murmured, “you want to do it again.”
The priest’s eyes were wide.
“She was born under the eclipse,” he said. “You know what that means. You were the first to say it.”
“I was the first to say it aloud,” the Caller said. “I was not the first to regret it.”
His hand lifted.
Aria felt the weight of it.
Not as fist.
As instrument.
“I will not deliver another one to your fire,” he whispered. “Not this one. Not after what you did to the last.”
The priest trembled.
“You would defy the moon itself?” he asked.
The Caller’s eyes darkened.
“I will defy anyone who treats a child like a weapon,” he said.
Her heart stamped.
He meant—
Her.
Aria.
The Luna born under an eclipse.
Not yet grown.
Not yet hunted.
The first one.
Or…
The other one.
The priest swallowed.
“This is blasphemy,” he whispered. “This is treason against heaven.”
The Caller leaned in.
Aria felt the breath in their shared lungs.
“Treason,” he said softly, “is making a girl burn for your convenience and calling it sacred.”
His hand closed around the priest’s throat.
Aria felt the pulse hammering against their shared fingers.
She tried to jerk away.
The dream held.
“You twisted the words,” the Caller said. “You told kings and councils and frightened wolves that the moon ‘chose’ sacrifices. It didn’t. You did. For power. For fear. For control.”
The priest choked.
“The prophecy—”
“The prophecy,” the Caller snapped, “is a door. Nothing more. We decide who walks through it.”
He squeezed.
The priest’s face darkened.
Aria wanted to look away.
She couldn’t.
“You will not call for her,” the Caller murmured. “You will not speak her name in your rituals. You will not summon her under your painted sky.”
The priest clawed at bonds he couldn’t break.
He tried to speak.
Couldn’t.
The Caller’s hand tightened once.
Then let go.
The priest sagged in his bonds, gasping, not yet dead.
The Caller straightened.
Something flickered inside him.
Pain.
Grief.
Regret.
Aria felt it like it was hers.
He looked down at his hand.
The hand Aria was trapped inside.
She saw the tremor in it.
He hated this.
He hated them.
He hated—
Himself.
Another voice spoke from the doorway.
“You’re late.”
The Caller turned.
Aria wasn’t forced to see who stood there.
She chose to.
A man leaned against the doorframe.
Roman’s father.
Younger.
Crownless.
Wearing plain dark leathers that did nothing to hide the raw energy under his skin.
Storm slept beneath his flesh.
Power with no outlet.
Not yet.
“And you’re early,” the Caller said flatly.
The future King snorted.
“If they had their way, she’d already be in the courtyard,” he said. “On her knees in that ridiculous circle. With those idiots chanting over her.”
The priest whimpered.
“You see?” the Caller said softly. “Your priests are more eager to feed the moon than to understand it.”
“You’re the one who scared them,” Roman’s father replied. “You’re the one who said she was ‘more.’ That she was dangerous.”
“She is more,” the Caller said sharply. “That doesn’t mean you get to throw her at the sky and pray she breaks the right way.”
Roman’s father stepped into the room fully.
“The North is shaking,” he said. “We are out of time. The council wants assurance. The priests want obedience. The packs want a reason not to panic. You want… what? To pretend you can keep her out of this?”
“Yes,” the Caller said.
For a second, everything inside Aria stopped.
He meant it.
He meant it.
Roman’s father laughed once, bitter.
“You can’t,” he said. “You think I don’t want to keep him out of it too?”
He jerked his chin toward the hall.
“Do you think I want my son anywhere near that circle?” he demanded. “Do you think I want to see his name spill out of your mouth beside hers?”
The Caller’s jaw tightened.
“Then don’t let them summon him,” he said. “Take him away. Hide him.”
“And leave her?” Roman’s father snapped. “Leave a girl I’ve held in my arms like she was mine? Leave Elaria standing there alone?”
His eyes burned.
The Caller looked away.
“I won’t do it,” Roman’s father said roughly. “I won’t choose one of them.”
“You won’t have to,” the Caller murmured.
He reached for the scroll again.
“The moon chooses twice,” he said. “You remember the line.”
“I remember that you translated it,” Roman’s father said.
“And I remember wishing I hadn’t,” the Caller said. “But now it’s done. They heard it. They believe it. They want to watch it happen.”
He turned.
Met Roman’s father’s gaze.
“It doesn’t say the crown will break,” he said. “Not yet. Not in the oldest version.”
Roman’s father frowned.
“What does it say?”
The Caller’s throat worked.
He swallowed.
“It says: When the moon chooses twice, the crown must choose once.”
Aria felt the weight of it.
A decision.
A single one.
Too big for any man.
“I can fix the words,” the Caller said quietly. “I can rewrite the line. Make it say what they want. Change ‘must’ to ‘will.’ Turn an obligation into doom. Give them something to fear instead of something to carry.”
Roman’s father stared at him.
“You’d twist prophecy?” he whispered. “On purpose?”
“Someone already did,” the Caller said. “You all let it be read and never asked who held the pen.”
He looked at the priest.
Still struggling weakly.
“I won’t let them bind her,” he said.
He looked back at Roman’s father.
“I won’t let them bind him either.”
For a moment, there was something almost like brotherhood there.
A shared understanding in the eyes of two men who knew exactly how much power a single choice held.
Roman’s father exhaled.
“What are you going to do?” he demanded.
The Caller smiled.
It was tired.
“I’m going to make sure the moon never gets the question,” he said.
Aria’s blood roared.
He meant the tower.
He meant the fire.
He meant—
Darkness slammed over the memory.
The scene broke.
The room shattered like glass.
Aria fell—
And hit her own bed.
Her body jolted.
Her lungs dragged in air.
Her hands flew to her throat—
No rope.
No ink.
No scar.
Only her own skin.
Sweat chilled her neck.
The room was dark.
Her window slightly open.
Her heart racing.
Her magic—
Humming.
Not wild.
Not panicked.
Alert.
A shadow moved by the window.
She tensed.
“Aria.”
Roman’s voice.
She exhaled shakily.
“You have a terrible habit of appearing after my worst dreams,” she rasped.
He stepped into the dim lamplight.
The look on his face made her sit up straighter.
“What is it?” she asked.
“You screamed,” he said quietly.
She blinked.
“I did?”
He nodded once.
“I was halfway to your door before I remembered I’m not supposed to walk into your room in the middle of the night without knocking. Then I heard you stop.”
His jaw flexed.
“And then I felt it.”
She swallowed.
“Felt… what?”
He came closer.
Not touching.
Just present.
Like always.
“Something shifted,” he said. “In you. In the bond.”
He tilted his head.
“In him.”
Her skin crawled.
She swallowed hard.
“I saw him,” she whispered. “Not here. Not in this time. Before. When he still pretended to be on your side.”
Roman’s mouth tightened.
“The Caller?”
She nodded.
“He tried to stop it,” she said numbly. “The ritual. The calling. The way they meant to offer us up. He wanted to keep us out of it.”
She laughed once.
Hollow.
“He wanted to save us.”
Roman’s hand curled into a fist at his side.
“Don’t,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“Don’t let him become a victim in your head,” Roman said. “He chose what he became.”
“I know,” she said quickly. “I know what he is now. What he does. What he uses. I watched him break that priest. I felt his hand on someone’s throat and I couldn’t stop it.”
She swallowed again.
“But I also felt what he felt when he realized what the prophecy could do to us,” she said. “To you. To me. To every Luna before me.”
She looked up.
Her eyes were too bright.
“It wasn’t hunger,” she whispered.
“It was regret.”
Roman closed his eyes for a moment.
“I don’t care what he regrets,” he said. “I care what he does.”
“I know,” she said softly.
“But if we don’t understand why he’s doing it, we’re going to keep reacting to the wrong thing.”
He stared at her.
Something in his gaze sharpened.
“Then tell me,” he said.
She did.
She told him about the corridor, the priest, the rewritten line. The moment the Caller realized the prophecy could demand a choice no one could live with.
She told him about his father.
Young.
Afraid.
Trying to protect both children.
She told him the old line:
“When the moon chooses twice, the crown must choose once.”
Roman’s face went still.
He looked like someone had struck him.
“Not ‘will,’” he murmured. “Not ‘shall.’”
“Must,” she said. “A warning. A weight. An obligation. Not inevitable doom.”
“And the Caller changed it,” Roman said. “Turned choice into curse.”
She nodded.
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then—
Roman laughed.
It wasn’t amused.
It was something like horrified relief.
“So all this time,” he said. “All these years. All these burnt towers and broken lives and girls thrown under a sky that never asked for them—”
His eyes burned.
“It was a man,” he said. “Not the moon.”
“A man with a pen,” Aria said. “Who couldn’t live with what he’d already done.”
Roman shook his head slowly.
“The crown must choose once,” he repeated. “But he made it sound like the crown would break no matter what. Like there was never a decision to make at all.”
He lifted his eyes to hers.
“But now we know better.”
Her heart stumbled.
“We still have to choose,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said.
“And something will still break.”
“Yes,” he said again.
He stepped closer.
Until the distance between them was thin enough for his warmth to touch her skin.
“But this time,” he said softly, “we decide what.”
Her gaze flicked to his marked wrist.
Then to hers.
“What if it’s us?” she asked.
His answer was immediate.
“Then we make sure we’re worth the breaking.”
The air between them tightened.
Dangerous.
Tender.
Sharp.
She inhaled.
“Roman,” she whispered.
His name tasted like fate and choice and a hundred unspoken things.
He reached out.
Not for her face.
Not for her waist.
For her hand.
She gave it to him.
Their scars pulsed in answer.
The dream lingered at the back of her mind.
The Caller.
The priest.
Her younger self hidden in a room, unaware.
Roman’s father making the wrong choice for the right reasons.
She closed her eyes.
For the first time since the tower, she didn’t feel like a child trapped in someone else’s story.
She felt—
Dangerous.
Because now she knew:
The prophecy wasn’t a sentence.
It was a question.
And she and Roman—
Were finally in a position to answer it.
On purpose.
No matter who had written it wrong the first time.