Chapter 225: Honored one
FIA
The darkness should have been final. It should have been the end of everything. But slowly and impossibly, color bled back into my world.
I opened my eyes to reeds.
They stretched across the entire space, tall and golden, swaying in a breeze I couldn’t feel. The sky above
was impossible. A blanket of colors that shifted and moved like liquid silk. Purples bled into deep blues, then brightened to coral and amber. And scattered across that shifting firmant were moons. All the phases at once. Crescent and full, waxing and waning, hanging suspended like jewels against that painted sky.
I pushed myself up. My hands sank into soft earth. No pain shot through my body. No glass jutted from my throat. I touched my neck with trembling fingers and found smooth, unbroken skin.
Was this the afterlife?
The thought hit
like a physical blow. A pang started to form in my chest, spreading outward until it felt like my ribs might crack from the pressure. If I died, what would Cian feel? The question twisted sothing deep inside . He would hate himself. He would hate that he didn’t follow
despite wanting to. That hurt worse than any wound. Worse than the mory of glass tearing through flesh, worse than the road peeling my skin away in strips.
"Fancy eting you here." Soone said.
That made
spin around.
A woman stood among the reeds. She wore white robes that seed to glow with their own light, fabric that moved like water even though there was no wind. A crown sat on her head, delicate and fierce at once. A crescent moon wrought in silver that caught the light from the impossible sky above. Her hair was silvery white, long and curly, reaching all the way to her hips. It moved around her like it was alive, each strand catching light and throwing it back in soft gleams.
Her skin was a beautiful mix of tones, like soone had blended sunlight, the earth and moonbeam into flesh. And her eyes held warmth. Not the kind you find in fire but the kind you find in sumr nights, in gentle hands, in things that feel like ho even when you’ve never been there before.
I didn’t know her. I had never seen her face. But when she moved closer, when her bare feet disturbed the reeds and sent them whispering against each other, I felt like I had known her my entire life.
"I know you," I said. The words ca out soft, almost a question.
"Of course you do." Her voice was strange. Not male or female but sothing beyond both. It resonated in my chest, in my bones, like it was speaking directly to sothing deeper than my ears could reach. She smiled and the expression transford her face into sothing almost blinding. "I have known you all your life. I know all my children."
My breath caught.
The pieces fell into place all at once. The crown. The moons scattered across the sky. The way she seed to exist slightly outside of reality itself, like she was more real than everything around her.
"Lady Selene."
I dropped to my knees. The earth was soft beneath
but I barely felt it. I bowed my head, pressing my forehead toward the ground. My heart hamred against my ribs. The Moon Goddess. I was in the presence of the Moon Goddess herself.
"Please." Her voice ca closer. "There is no need for that."
I lifted my head slowly. She stood right in front of
now, close enough to touch. The light from her robes cast everything in soft white.
"That ans I’m truly dead," I said. My voice sounded hollow. Empty. "Doesn’t it?"
"No." Selene tilted her head slightly. "Not yet. Not if you don’t want to stay."
"What does that an?"
Instead of answering, she reached out. Her hand was elegant, fingers long and graceful. She pointed to my chest. Right where my heart would be.
"You are a fascinating specin." Her eyes t mine and I saw galaxies in them. Actual galaxies, spinning, colliding and being born. "It is rare for an abomination of nature and divinity to catch my eye. But you did. You have for a long ti now. So I stayed by you and watched."
She turned away from . Her hand reached out and touched the reeds. They bent away from her fingers like they were afraid. Or maybe in awe. Then she grabbed a handful and pulled.
The reeds tore apart like fabric.
Reality ripped open and suddenly we were sowhere else. The golden field was gone. Instead, I saw twisted tal and smoke. Flas licking at the wreckage of two cars. And there, on the road, was my body.
I looked dead. Blood pooled beneath , dark and thick. My skin was pale, almost gray. Glass still jutted from my throat. But Garrett was there. He was up, moving, his uniform jacket pressed hard against my neck. His hands were soaked red. His face was twisted with desperation.
"You aren’t dead yet," Selene said beside . "So you can still go back. But only if you want to."
I stared at my broken body. At Garrett frantically trying to stop the bleeding. At the way my chest barely moved at all with each—if you could even call it shallow— breath.
"I’m not sure how," I said.
"I’m surprised you think that." Selene’s voice carried sothing like amusent. "It is in your genes after all."
I turned to look at her. "What?"
"The way your nose is sensitive." She gestured gracefully, like she was pointing to things I couldn’t see. "Your skill with poison. How you managed to break the power of alchemy because of your connection to the source."
My mind raced. The source? I thought about that night with the Grand Luna. When I had fed her the supposed cure we made.
"Are you saying I actually did help the Grand Luna that ti? I wasn’t so sure it was us."
"Us? No, you did." Selene moved closer to the scene. Her robes didn’t disturb the smoke. She existed separately from it, like she was watching through glass. "And there is so much more you can do. I’m sure you feel it much more now."
She laughed. The sound was like bells and thunder at once. "They thought they could create like we the gods do. One of their twisted creations even tried to take you out right now." Her expression shifted. The warmth was still there but sothing harder edged it. Sothing ancient, sothing powerful and not to be tested. "But I, Selene, will not be mocked. They want the age of legends back. Well. It is back now."
"I have no idea what you’re talking about, Lady Selene."
"I know." She turned to face
fully. "I’m not allowed to reveal much. Even the gods have their rules. But know this, child. There is power within you. Heaven, you called
here." She stepped closer until she was right in front of . Her hand cupped my face with impossible gentleness. "So I will tell you this much. You are favored by . Enjoy being loved by a god."
She leaned in and then pressed a kiss to my cheek.
Her lips were warm. The sensation spread from that point of contact through my entire being, like sunlight flooding a dark room. Sothing inside
shifted. No. More like unlocked. I felt it wake up, whatever it was, stretching after a long sleep.
When she pulled back, I grabbed her arm without thinking. "Does that an you’ll help
back into my body?"
Selene smiled. "Your heart still beats. Strengthen it."
Then she was gone.
One mont she stood in front of , solid and real. The next, there was only smoke and flas and the wreckage of the accident.
"Wait," I said to the empty air.
Nothing answered.
I turned back to the scene. Garrett was still working frantically. His lips moved and I strained to hear.
"Stay with , Luna Fia. Please." His voice cracked. He looked around desperately, patting down his pockets. Looking for his phone probably. But I rembered seeing mine float away toward that figure. Toward the monster who had done this. She probably took his too.
I moved closer to my body. It looked so fragile. So broken. Blood still seeped from around Garrett’s makeshift bandage. My chest barely rose and fell in tiny, irregular movents.
Could I even make it?
Then I heard it.
A hum. Low and resonant, like the earth itself was singing. I looked down at my hands and froze.
They were glowing.
A curious blue light emanated from my palms, spreading up my wrists. It pulsed in ti with sothing. A rhythm I couldn’t quite place. Then I realized it matched my heartbeat. The one still struggling in my broken body.
"What the hell," I whispered.
But even as I said it, sothing inside
knew. It was like muscle mory I’d never ford. Knowledge I’d never learned but sohow possessed anyway. My hands knew what to do even if my mind didn’t understand.
I knelt beside my body. The blood didn’t touch . Nothing in this half-state touched
except what I wanted it to. I reached out with those glowing hands and pressed them to my chest. Right over my heart.
The glow intensified imdiately.
It spread from my hands into my body, racing through veins and arteries like liquid light. I felt it in a way I couldn’t explain. Felt it strengthen what was weak, shore up what was failing. My heart responded. The rhythm grew stronger and more steady.
The light grew brighter and brighter until I couldn’t see anything else. It consud everything. The wreckage, Garrett, the night sky. There was only blue light, brilliant and blinding, and the feeling of my heart rembering how to beat.
Then the light swallowed
whole.
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