Chapter 9: The Festival of Broken Moons
Kael woke gasping.
The breath left their lips like a soul trying to escape. Their chest heaved, skin clammy, and the memory of Riven's blade piercing their ribs clung to their body like frost. But it had only been a vision. A thread of fate not yet real but no less terrifying.
A circle of faces surrounded them in the glowing hush of the Moth Oracle's chamber: Aeris, her face pale and drawn; Thorne, jaw tense; Kiel and Laeth, their expressions unreadable. Even Riven stood in the background like a shadow no light dared touch.
Aeris reached for them first, time-runes spiraling at her fingertips. "You're back," she breathed, voice thick with a storm she hadn't yet named.
Kael tried to sit up, only to feel Thorne's steady hand supporting their spine.
"What did you see?" he asked.
Kael stared at the vaulted cocoon of the tower. Their voice cracked. "He killed me. Not someday. Not maybe. A version of me already died."
Riven didn't flinch. Didn't deny it. "Many versions of you will die. The question is, which one survives long enough to become real?"
Kael stood on trembling legs. "Then we change the path. We undo it before it loops again."
Laeth folded his arms. "Easy. Just defy a prophecy older than the moons."
Aeris' voice cut through like a blade. "Not defy. Reforge. At the Festival of Broken Moons."
Kiel stiffened. "The Vein will be exposed there. So will Kael."
"Good," Kael said. "Then we go. Tonight."
The journey to Marrowspire was swift, thanks to a rift-way only the Oracle could open. Aeris had torn it open midair with an incantation that fractured the sky for three heartbeats. The group emerged at dusk beneath a crescent arch of rib-bone, the first marker of the skeletal city.
Marrowspire had no walls. It was a wall built into the bones of a behemoth sky-creature that had fallen from the stars before recorded time. The bones arched into towers, bridges, spires. Lanterns floated like fireflies, lit with memories. The air shimmered with spells older than names.
And the festival had already begun.
Music poured through the streets: high, shrill notes of bone flutes; deep chimes made from cracked starshells. Masked revelers danced in robes of shadowlight and threadbare silk. Every building was draped with crimson banners etched in languages that changed as you stared.
Kael's heart thudded. This place felt alive.
Aeris walked beside them. "The Festival of Broken Moons is when oaths can be broken and rewritten. Love, magic, blood, fate. All fluid tonight."
Laeth bumped Kael's shoulder. "And it's tradition for everyone to kiss someone under the blood arch. Or fate gets... testy."
"So it's a kiss-or-die festival?" Kael asked dryly.
Laeth grinned. "Technically, yes."
They were stopped several times by spirit-children offering charms and relics. One gave Kael a ring woven from moonlace.
"You're the Veinborn," the child whispered. "Don't forget to kiss the broken ones."
"Who are they?" Kael asked.
But the child was gone.
The blood arch stood at the heart of the city a massive rib-bone carved into a crescent and strung with lanterns made from preserved moth wings. Beneath it, couples embraced, argued, forgave. Some kissed passionately. Others wept.
The magic here was thick.
Kael stepped beneath it and felt the pull.
All five of them were drawn to them Thorne in his silent vigilance, Aeris with her storm-light eyes, Laeth with a mocking smirk that couldn't hide his need, Kiel calm and burning, and Riven standing apart, silent and chained by something far older than metal.
Kael's heartbeat roared in their ears. Their body moved on instinct.
They turned first to Aeris.
She raised a brow. "Are you sure?"
Kael didn't answer. Just kissed her.
The moment their lips met, time fractured around them. The air shimmered. Lanterns blew sideways. A thousand clock-hands screamed across a frozen sky.
When they broke apart, Aeris was blinking like she'd seen the start and end of the world.
Kael stepped back.
And kissed Thorne.
His lips were chapped. Warm. His hands didn't touch Kael until the very last second, and when they did, it was like a soldier laying down his sword for the first time.
The ground trembled. A sword embedded in stone nearby cracked.
Kiel stepped forward next, solemn.
Kael didn't hesitate.
Their kiss was brief, gentle. But the Vein sang at that contact the thread between them turning visible for a blink. A line of light from Kael's chest to Kiel's.
Then came Laeth.
"Took you long enough," he whispered.
Kael rolled their eyes. "Shut up."
And kissed him.
Laeth didn't play coy. He deepened it instantly, and the Vein around them flared wildly. Several bystanders gasped as blossoms of black flame danced midair.
Finally...
Riven.
He hadn't moved.
Kael crossed the space.
"Say something."
"You'll regret it."
"Probably."
And then they kissed him.
It was wrong and right and burning. Kael felt the taste of blood and stars and chains breaking.
The entire arch exploded in light.
Lanterns shattered.
The moons overhead split both of them.
Cracks raced across the sky.
The Vein screamed.
And Kael fell.
They didn't fall onto the stone floor.
They fell upward, into a realm of broken stars.
Then light blazed.
And Kael woke in a throne room.
No. Their throne room.
Pillars of bone and starlight. Rivers of molten thread ran between tiles. A crown pulsed on their brow. Robes flowed like living silk from their shoulders.
A mirror stood ahead.
Kael walked to it.
And saw themselves older, wiser, eyes filled with galaxies.
Behind them, someone spoke:
"You're late, God-King."
Kael turned.
And saw Thorne.
Aeris.
Laeth.
Kiel.
And Riven.
All kneeling.
Not as protectors.
As followers.
A new prophecy burned into Kael's mind:
The Vein does not choose kings. It becomes them.
And in the distance, war drums began to beat.