Chapter 141 Hundred and forty four
“Sienna, do you hear that?” Ryder’s voice cut through the dark as if it carried its own light, quiet but sharpened by instinct and the kind of fear only a hunted man could recognize. His words hung between them while the wind shifted around the ruins, bending the grass as though something heavy moved through it without choosing to be seen. Sienna turned, heart thudding once, hard enough to echo in her ears, her fingers curling around the hilt of the blade she had not yet sheathed. He stood half in shadow behind her, chest rising and falling too fast, as if his lungs fought air that refused to obey him. His eyes glowed faintly, warning her more clearly than anything he could have said. Something was coming. Something not born of earth.
“What did you hear?” she asked, though the tremor in her throat already answered for her. Ryder stepped closer, his hand brushing her elbow, guiding her back toward the broken arch of the Moon Gate wall. His touch was warm, grounding, dangerously familiar. She felt the pull, the bond pressing through her bones like a memory she hadn’t chosen to carry. He swallowed once before answering, as though the truth tasted wrong even in his own mouth.
“The sky shifted,” he murmured. “And the ground listened.” He lifted his chin toward the horizon. “This is her doing.”
The moment he said it, the air tightened around them. Sienna felt it first as a strange pressure behind her ribs, like invisible fingers pushing her forward, expecting her to run. The next breath she took tasted metallic, sharp with moonlight and the scent of something ancient stirring. “Lunaris,” she whispered, her voice cracking against the name that had reshaped their lives again and again. The goddess had watched them, hunted them, punished them, and now she was reaching for them once more.
Ryder moved in front of her, protective without thinking, his shoulders tense as he scanned the sky. “She’s not coming herself,” he said. “Not yet.” He lifted his hand, pointing toward a sliver of pale shimmer weaving between the distant treetops. It shifted like smoke, then split apart into three glowing shapes gliding low and silent through the forest canopy. They were not birds. They were not wolves. They were too large, too weightless, too unnatural to belong anywhere except the realm of a goddess.
Sienna felt her breath seize. “They’re hunting.” Ryder nodded once, jaw tight, his eyes unable to leave the sky as the shapes descended in a slow, deliberate arc that promised nothing but violence. “Celestial beasts,” he said, barely louder than a whisper. “She released them. That means she’s done waiting.”
“How far are they?” Sienna asked, though the answer had already begun to pulse inside her bones. She could feel their presence like a pressure behind her heartbeat, like they were searching for her specifically. Ryder stepped closer, lowering his voice as if the air itself might carry his words away to the goddess listening beyond their sight.
“They’ll reach us within minutes,” he said. “Less if we stay out in the open.” His breath shook, just once. “She’s not playing with us anymore, Sienna. She means to end this.”
Sienna forced herself to swallow as she looked toward the shimmering horizon. The beasts moved like shadows pulled from moonlight itself, their forms fluid, their outlines shifting, as though they were made of wind and memory instead of flesh. “We can’t outrun them,” she said, her voice steady despite the tightening in her throat. She lifted her gaze to Ryder. “You know we can’t.”
“No,” he admitted. “But we can fight them long enough to reach shelter.” He stepped closer, lowering his forehead almost to hers. “I won’t let them take you.”
“You can’t promise that,” she whispered.
“I just did.”
His words hit harder than a blade. For a moment, they held each other’s gaze, neither willing to look away, neither willing to admit that the bond between them still burned despite everything, despite the curse, despite the goddess, despite the war tearing their world apart. Ryder reached for her arm, his touch trembling with urgency, but he paused before gripping her, as if the curse might flare the moment their skin met. “We need to move,” he said. “Now.”
The first roar shattered the sky.
It wasn’t like anything from the mortal world. The sound wasn’t heard as much as it was felt, deep in the skull, deep in the ribs, deep in the soul. Sienna staggered back against the stone wall, her breath punching out of her. Ryder grabbed her, steadying her with a quick, instinctive motion he didn’t think twice about. The sound faded into a hiss, then into a low, vibrating hum that made the ruins shudder around them.
Sienna looked up.
Her heart stopped.
A creature dropped from the sky, landing at the top of the broken Moon Gate like a shard of fallen light. Its body glowed silver-blue, its wings too large for its slender frame, each feather shimmering as though crafted from liquid moonlight. Its eyes held no pupils, only swirling storms of pale silver, ancient and merciless. When it opened its mouth, the inside glowed white-hot, as if a star lived inside its throat.
Ryder pushed Sienna behind him, blade already raised. “Stay close to me,” he said. She felt his body coil tight, ready to move, ready to die if it meant keeping her breathing. The creature cocked its head, studying him with a cool, predatory calm that reminded Sienna terrifyingly of Lunaris herself.
A second roar echoed from the forest. The wolves of the goddess leapt from the shadows, smaller than the winged beast but no less deadly. Their bodies were made of shifting light, their paws leaving trails of silver fire on the ground. They ran in a circling formation, trapping Ryder and Sienna against the ruined wall.
Ryder exhaled once, long and slow. “Three on the ground. One above. They’re measuring us.”
Sienna felt her hands shake as she lifted her blade. “They were sent for me,” she said. Ryder didn’t look back at her. “Then they’ll have to go through me first.”
The winged beast unfurled its wings slowly, deliberately, the pale light spreading across the ruins. Sienna’s breath caught as something familiar stirred inside her. Her pulse raced, heat rushing through her veins, not from fear but from power. The silver threads beneath her skin shimmered faintly, responding to the celestial presence in a way she could not control. The creature’s swirling eyes locked onto hers, and its lips curled back in something that resembled recognition.
Ryder noticed. “Sienna,” he said sharply, “don’t let it in.”
“I’m not, ” She staggered as a wave of energy hit her chest like a blow. Images flashed through her vision, Lunaris, the moon, the old wars, ancient wolves kneeling before a throne of light. For a heartbeat she felt weightless, as if her soul had been pulled toward the sky.
Ryder grabbed her arm. “Sienna, stay with me.”
“I’m trying.”
The beasts lunged.
Ryder moved first. He leapt toward the nearest wolf, slicing across its glowing neck. Instead of flesh, his blade tore through light, sending a spray of shimmering sparks into the air. The wolf staggered, its energy flickering. Ryder followed with a second strike, driving it back toward the treeline.
Sienna blocked a lunging wolf, her blade ringing against its glowing fangs. The impact jolted up her arm, but she held her ground. She spun, slicing across its side. The beast snarled, more light spilling out, but it did not fall. It circled her, faster this time, its paws leaving sparks.
“Sienna, left!” Ryder shouted.
She ducked just before the winged beast swooped down, claws slicing across the air where her head had been. The force of its wings knocked her sideways, scraping her palms against the stone. Ryder lunged toward the creature, but it moved with impossible speed, rising into the air and twisting to face him. Its wings glowed brighter, gathering power.
“Ryder, move!” she screamed.
But he didn’t.
He stood his ground.
The creature released a blast of moon-white light, hitting Ryder square in the chest. Sienna screamed as he was thrown backward across the ruins, his body striking the stone with a sickening crack. She ran toward him, but the wolves cut her off, their snarling bodies circling her, forcing her back.
“Ryder,” she whispered, voice breaking.
He wasn’t moving.
The winged beast descended again, landing between them, blocking her view of him entirely. It tilted its head, studying Sienna with the cold patience of a goddess. She felt something inside her pulse again, low, powerful, dangerous. The silver veins beneath her skin brightened, glowing through the fabric of her clothes.
The creature hissed softly, recognizing the shift.
“Sienna,” Ryder’s voice rasped suddenly, weak but alive. “Don’t let it take you. Fight it.”
She tightened her grip on her blade. “I’m not letting her win.”
The creature opened its wings again.
The sky pulsed with light.
The goddess was watching.
The beasts closed in.
And Sienna realized,
This was only the beginning.