“How do you know that?”Kale asked her.
“Rachel,” Heather said and pointed to her head.“Healer bond thingy.”
“Well,” Jen said, slowly.“That is slightly terrifying.”
Decebel straightened slowly from the pillar.“Raja.”
Heather nodded once.
Before anyone could speak again, moonlight flooded the chamber.
Not from outside.
From everywhere.
The crystal walls glowed silver.The fractured light beyond the overlook stilled.Every supernatural in the room rose instinctively to their feet as power older than realms settled softly across the chamber.
The Great Luna stood near the center of the room.
Jacque inhaled sharply beside Fane.
The goddess looked tired.
That frightened him more than the trembling realms.
“Great Luna,” Fane said quietly, bowing his head.
The others followed immediately.
The Great Luna’s gaze moved slowly across the room before settling on Fane and Jacque.
“A sacrifice has been made,” she said softly.
Grief moved through the words like an echo.
Jacque’s fingers tightened painfully around Fane’s hand.
“The foundations hold,” the goddess continued, “but only barely.”
“What happened?”Fane asked.
The Great Luna’s silver eyes darkened with sorrow.
“Love,” she answered quietly.“And the cost it sometimes demands.”
Nobody spoke.
Because somehow that answer felt worse than war.
The goddess turned then, looking toward the fractured silver horizon beyond the overlook.
“The child born beneath the foundations bought the realms time,” she said.“Nothing more.”
Fane’s wolf stirred uneasily beneath his skin.More war.Coming fast now.And somewhere beyond the barriers between realms, Raja was still moving.Still gathering strength.Still waiting.
The Great Luna looked back toward them one final time.“Prepare yourself, Alpha of alpha’s,” she said softly.
Then her expression shifted, and the gentle Creator was gone, and in her place a fierce battle maiden appeared.“There are darker things waking now.They don’t fight to win.They fight to kill everything good.Some will desert you.Some will hide.Some will join the other side because it seems like the easier path.Choose your allies wisely.I go before you now and make way for your battlefield.”
