The smoke still clung to Selene's skin like a second layer, curling in her hair, lining her lungs. She could taste it—char, blood, vengeance. The outpost lay in ruins behind them, blackened and cracked, broken like the silence that had once kept the rebellion in shadows.
They didn't rest.
They couldn't.
By midday, Selene's scouts had returned with more news—this time, of another village falling under Alaric's grip. But what made her blood run cold wasn't the village's fall.
It was the message.
The scout, a lean, wiry she-wolf named Branna, dropped to one knee before Selene in the forest clearing they'd claimed for a brief rest. Her armor was torn, her lip bloodied, but her eyes—gods, her eyes were haunted.
"What did you see?" Selene asked, voice low.
Branna swallowed. "The village of Hollowmere is gone."
Selene frowned. "Gone?"
"Burned. Razed to the earth. But there were no bodies."
Maera stiffened. "No bodies?"
Branna shook her head. "None. Just… symbols. Markings carved into the stones. Old ones. Blood magic. It wasn't a purge. It was a summoning."
Selene's stomach twisted. Her hand dropped instinctively to the hilt of the dagger at her waist. "What kind of summoning?"
Branna met her gaze, terror stark on her face. "Necromancy."
A heavy silence fell.
Lucien swore under his breath.
Maera crossed her arms. "He's crossing every boundary. Even the forbidden ones."
Selene nodded slowly. "He's not just raising an army. He's raising the dead."
Branna's voice shook. "The ashes… they were moving. Like something was still breathing in them."
Selene stared at the forest floor, heart thudding. "He's calling on the old gods. The wrong ones."
Lucien moved closer to her side. "Then we call on the right ones."
---
That night, the moon rose red.
Selene stood alone in a glade surrounded by stones, her cloak discarded, her feet bare against the grass. The others watched from a distance, their breath hushed, their faith quiet but present.
In her hands, she held a bowl of silver—a sacred vessel passed down through the Silvermoon line. It was etched with runes that glowed faintly in the dark, humming with ancestral power.
She knelt at the center of the stone ring and began the chant.
It was not a prayer.
It was a challenge.
The moon pulsed overhead as if responding to her call. The wind picked up, swirling leaves around her body, lifting her hair like a crown of fire. The stones trembled. Light bled from the silver bowl, pooling at her knees.
"I call not as heir," she intoned, voice ringing through the night, "but as blood. I summon not with words, but with will."
Power surged from her spine, racing through her limbs like lightning.
"Silvermoon, awaken. Ancestors, answer me."
The ground cracked.
The air split.
Figures appeared in the mist—shadows, echoes of those who had come before. Queen Ysolde, wrapped in silks and chains. Warlord Cira, armor bathed in blood. High Priestess Amaris, her eyes hollow with wisdom.
They circled Selene.
"You call us," Ysolde said. "But what do you offer?"
"Myself," Selene whispered. "My soul. My name. My vengeance."
Cira tilted her head. "You are reborn, but are you ready?"
"I don't have time to be ready," Selene said fiercely. "I only have time to act."
Amaris stepped forward. "Then listen, daughter of moon and war. He has awakened the blood of the deep. The ones buried for a reason. You must not fight darkness with darkness."
"I'm not," Selene said. "I'll fight it with fire."
The three ancestors looked at each other.
Then they bowed.
The light flared—and sank into her chest.
Selene gasped as the visions came, thick and fast—rituals long forgotten, runes lost to time, names that made the earth shudder. When it ended, she collapsed forward, breathless but alive.
Lucien was there in a heartbeat, catching her.
"Selene—"
She looked up at him, eyes glowing. "I know how to stop him."
---
They moved west by morning.
The necromancy had a source. An altar deep within the Ironwood Caves—once a sacred space, now defiled. The old gods had whispered it to Selene in her dream. If they destroyed the altar, they could cut off the dark magic before it spread.
But the caves were treacherous.
Twisting, layered with traps and whispers of madness. Only those with the bloodline of the Silvermoon could navigate its true path. Selene would have to go in alone.
Maera wasn't happy about it. Neither was Lucien.
"This is suicide," he said, pacing as they camped near the entrance. "You're strong, Selene, but this place... it eats power."
"That's why I have to go," she said. "The echoes inside will only obey blood."
He gritted his teeth. "Then I'm going with you."
She smiled, soft but sad. "You can't. The magic won't let you."
Maera crossed her arms. "Then we'll wait outside like fools?"
"No," Selene said. "You'll guard the entrance. If I don't return by moonrise, collapse it."
Lucien growled. "I'm not leaving you in there—"
She kissed him, silencing the protest.
"I'll come back," she whispered. "I promise."
---
The cave was a mouth of jagged teeth.
Selene stepped into it with only a torch and her dagger. The air grew cold instantly, the kind of cold that crawled inside your bones. The walls pulsed with something—old magic, diseased and foul.
As she walked, she whispered the names of her ancestors.
One by one, the runes lit up on the walls, guiding her.
After what felt like hours, she reached the altar.
It was worse than she'd imagined.
A slab of obsidian pulsed with red light. Around it, bones had been arranged in spirals. At its base, a silver crown lay tarnished and broken—her mother's.
Selene's hand shook as she approached.
"Alaric took everything," she said aloud. "But you won't take this."
She placed her palm on the altar—and screamed.
Darkness rushed into her.
Visions—burning cities, screaming children, her own death again and again.
She bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood and focused on her heartbeat. On Lucien. On the girl she had been, and the woman she was becoming.
"I am not afraid of you," she said to the dark.
The altar cracked.
A shockwave burst outward, knocking her off her feet.
When she opened her eyes, the red light was gone.
The altar was ash.
She stumbled out of the cave hours later, exhausted but whole.
Lucien caught her again.
"You're insane," he muttered, cradling her.
She laughed weakly. "I told you I'd come back."
---
By the time the sun rose, word had already begun to spread.
The darkness in the west had been broken. A new rallying cry had ignited among the scattered packs. They called her The Moonborne Queen now. Whispered it in firelit circles, carved it into trees, howled it into the night.
Selene didn't care about titles.
She only cared that Alaric now knew—she was coming.
And she would bring the storm with her.