Chapter 122 Hundred and twenty seven
“Did you miss me?” the voice whispered, curling through the broken stones like cold smoke sliding under a locked door.
Sienna froze. Ryder’s breath hitched sharply beside her, a sound dragged from the deepest place inside him, the place where the curse lived and the fear of the goddess had been carved into him like a second spine. He didn’t step back, though. He did what he had always done when danger found them, he placed himself between Sienna and the threat without thinking, without breathing, without caring what it would cost him.
Sienna grabbed his arm before he could fully shield her. “Ryder,” she whispered, “don’t, ”
“I’m not letting her near you,” he muttered, his voice low, steady, but she could hear the storm beneath it. “Not after everything she’s done.”
“Ryder,” Sienna tried again, “that’s the goddess. You can’t fight her.”
“Watch me,” he snapped, eyes locked on the shadow drifting forward.
Lunaris stepped into the faint glow of the wounded moon. She didn’t walk, she glided, her feet never touching the ground, her form shifting between woman and something made of night sky and broken starlight. Her face was too beautiful to hold without feeling pain. Her eyes were not eyes at all, but twin crescents of silver radiance that saw through bone and thought and memory with a single glance.
“Always the loyal one,” Lunaris murmured, tilting her head at Ryder as if studying an animal she had once owned. “Even now, even cursed, even falling apart at the seams, you still shield her.”
Ryder growled, a low, dangerous sound that rumbled through the air.
Lunaris smiled. “You growl at me as if you aren’t mine.”
“I’m not yours,” Ryder said, voice cracking with hatred and something older. “I never was.”
“Oh?” Lunaris stepped closer, and the trees around them shrank away. “Then why do you carry my mark in your soul?”
Sienna tightened her grip on Ryder’s arm. “Don’t listen to her.”
“Wise words,” Lunaris replied dryly. “But pointless.” Her gaze slid to Sienna, and the temperature dropped instantly. “Hello, little queen.”
Sienna lifted her chin, refusing to bow. “Stay away from him.”
The goddess laughed, a soft, melodic sound that somehow sounded like a blade being sharpened. “How delightful. You think you can protect him now.”
“I can,” Sienna said, voice calm but trembling at the edges. “I will.”
“You think your love is enough to challenge a god?” Lunaris asked, amusement melting into something colder. “You think this mortal bond you cling to can save him?”
“It already has,” Sienna replied.
The goddess’s expression flickered, the faintest crack in her perfect façade. “You presume too much.”
“And you fear too much,” Sienna returned, stepping closer to Ryder instead of retreating. “You fear what we are together.”
Lunaris’s silver eyes hardened. “What you are together,” she said slowly, “is a threat.”
Ryder moved instantly, stepping fully in front of Sienna. “If you intend to harm her, ”
“Harm her?” Lunaris interrupted, smiling cruelly. “Oh, Ryder. Sweet Ryder. I don’t need to harm her. You do it for me.”
Sienna blinked. “What?”
Lunaris lifted her hand. The air twisted, then an image materialized between them, a vision formed from silver mist.
Sienna.
Falling.
Bleeding.
Dying in Ryder’s arms.
Ryder staggered back as the illusion rippled with horrifying clarity. “No, stop, stop,” he whispered, reaching for it but unable to touch. “Not again.”
Sienna grabbed his hand, grounding him. “It’s not real.”
“It will be,” Lunaris replied simply. “Every step he takes toward you tightens the curse. Every breath he shares with you cuts another thread from your life. You, Sienna, are his blade.”
Sienna stiffened. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” Lunaris spread her fingers, and more visions flooded the air, different scenes, different deaths, each more violent than the last. Sienna’s body falling. Ryder screaming. Blood staining the ground.
“Stop,” Sienna breathed. “Stop this.”
Ryder’s eyes filled with horror as he watched every version of her death. “Sienna, don’t come closer,” he pleaded, backing away from her. “Stay there. Don’t touch me.”
“No,” she said fiercely, stepping forward.
“Don’t,” he choked. “Sienna, I saw you die. I saw you die a hundred times. I saw, ”
“You saw nothing but her illusions,” Sienna said, voice trembling but strong. “You think I fear dying? I fear losing you.”
Lunaris sighed, annoyed. “Mortals and their ridiculous declarations.”
Sienna ignored her. “Ryder, look at me.”
“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t watch you die again.”
“You won’t,” she whispered. “You won’t.”
Lunaris stepped between them, amusement dripping off her like frost. “You still don’t understand, do you? Your love is the curse. It’s the poison in his veins. The rot in his bones. Every moment you share pulls him deeper into the darkness I sealed centuries ago.”
Sienna’s heartbeat stuttered. “Why?”
Lunaris turned those crescent-moon eyes upon her, and something ancient stirred in the air. “Because he was not chosen for you, little queen. He was chosen for me.”
Ryder snarled, but the goddess continued, her voice soft and lethal.
“He carries the soul of my betrayer.”
Silence fell so suddenly it felt like the world stopped breathing.
Sienna whispered, “That can’t be true.”
Ryder flinched as if struck. “I am not, ”
“You are,” Lunaris said simply. “You always were. Every century, you return. Every lifetime, I place you near my chosen vessel. And every time, you fall in love with her.” She looked at Sienna with cold, divine disdain. “Every time, she dies.”
Sienna’s throat tightened. “Why?”
“Because he cannot love without destroying,” Lunaris said. “Because the soul he carries was forged to devour what it desires. Because he was meant to worship me, not you.”
Ryder took a shaky step back. “Is that why you cursed me?”
“No,” Lunaris said. “I cursed you because you chose her.”
The ground shook.
Sienna felt Ryder’s heart break in the air.
Lunaris drifted closer, her presence pressing like a hand on the back of Sienna’s neck. “You want to save one another? Then run. Run until the world ends. It will not matter. Fate is patient.”
“Leave us,” Sienna whispered. “You’ve done enough.”
“Not quite,” Lunaris said with a soft smile. “There is one more thing.”
She lifted her hand.
A beam of silver light shot downward, exploding into the earth around them. Ryder staggered, clutching his head as the curse surged, ripping through him like fire and ice.
Sienna reached for him.
He screamed, “Don’t touch me!”
But she grabbed him anyway.
The bond erupted.
Light burst between their hands.
The world bent,
And Lunaris’s whisper slithered through the air like a blade sliding between ribs.
“You cannot escape what you are.”
A shadow fell over them.
A divine presence descended.
And everything went dark.