Voice of the Moon
Voice of the Moon
##Chapter 41###
\### Voice of the Moon###
(Adelina’s POV)
The moon called to me again.
Not with words at first just that low, trembling hum that lived somewhere between my ribs and my soul. It had started three nights after the claiming ceremony, faint as a whisper, and it hadn’t stopped since.
I tried to ignore it.
I threw myself into the rhythm of leadership training, patrols, strengthening the borders of Hollow Crescent—but every time I stood still, every time the night grew quiet, it was there again.
Calling. Waiting.
And tonight, under the first full moon since I’d taken the Crest, it refused to be ignored.
The forest shimmered in silver light. Even the trees seemed to bow beneath the weight of the glow, their shadows stretching long and reverent. The wolves slept restlessly in their dens, as if the light itself kept their dreams uneasy.
I couldn’t sleep either. The Crest burned softly against my skin, pulsing like a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.
Come.
The word brushed the inside of my skull, gentle yet commanding. I rose before I realized I’d moved.
The path to the grove was instinctive now, as if the earth had shaped itself for me. I followed it barefoot, the moss cool beneath my feet, the air sharp and metallic with moonlight.
When I reached the clearing, the wind died completely. The air held its breath.
The altar stone glowed faintly, and the runes I’d once bled upon began to stir with light.
Then, the world tilted.
A soft vibration hummed through the soil, spreading up through my legs, into my chest. The Crest at my neck lifted of its own accord, suspended in the air before me.
I fell to my knees.
The silver light burst outward, expanding until it painted the whole grove white.
From within it, a figure emerged—tall, radiant, draped in robes woven from the stars themselves. Her hair was silver-white, and her eyes mirrored the moon in its truest form: not gentle, but vast and ancient and merciless.
I knew her name before she spoke it.
“Matron Elara,” I whispered.
Her smile was both tender and terrifying. “You remember the blood that bore you. Good. I feared the centuries had buried it too deep.”
I tried to speak, but my throat felt sealed by awe.
She stepped closer, her feet never touching the ground. “You have taken the Crest by pain and will. You have bound the scattered lineage. But claiming is not the same as keeping.”
“What do you mean?”
Her expression darkened slightly. “Every matron who carried the moon’s light has been tested. You are no exception.”
The air grew colder. The trees seemed to lean inward, listening.
Elara raised her hand, and the moonlight bent around it, forming shapes—images suspended in air. A battlefield, wolves howling beneath storm clouds, rivers of red. At the center of it all stood a woman who looked like me, only older, crowned in light and shadow both.
“Is that me?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. Instead, the vision shifted. I saw Dax chained, bloodied, his eyes hollow. And behind him, Sylvia, her face painted with that same smug calm I’d seen in every nightmare.
“She moves sooner than you think,” Elara said. “Her thirst for dominion will crack the packs themselves. But your path ” she paused, gaze narrowing “your path will decide whether the moon’s gift becomes salvation or ruin.”
I clenched my fists. “Then tell me how to stop her.”
Elara tilted her head. “You cannot stop what has already begun. You can only endure it.”
The words struck deep. “Endure?”
“Your bond will break twice more before it heals. Your blood will spill thrice before it sanctifies. And the child you carry”
My heart stumbled. “What about my child?”
Her eyes softened. “She is the key and the curse. The moon’s daughter reborn. Protect her, and the world will rise again in balance. Fail her, and even the stars will fade.”
The air quivered. For a moment, all I could hear was my pulse, ragged and loud.
“How can I protect something the whole world wants to destroy?”
Elara reached out and touched my forehead. Her hand was warm and impossibly light. “By remembering who you are—not the name they gave you, but the truth of your blood.”
The moment her fingers met my skin, light exploded behind my eyes.
I was somewhere else.
Standing in a vast plain under a moon that filled the entire sky. The ground shimmered with silver dust. And surrounding me were hundreds of wolves—massive, spectral, their eyes glowing white.
They bowed when I turned.
A voice rose above them, layered and deep, a chorus of generations speaking as one.
You are not the mistake they whispered about, Adelina McKenna. You are the memory they feared.
I fell to my knees again, overwhelmed. “Why me?”
Because you loved when you should have hated. Because you rose when you should have knelt.
The wolves howled in unison, their voices echoing across eternity.
Then, one by one, they vanished—leaving only a single wolf standing before me. She was enorm
ous, her coat silver-white, her eyes golden. When she spoke, her voice was the same as Elara’s.