Chapter 1 — The Prophecy of the Moon's Betrayal
The wind over Doomspine's peaks screamed like a mourning wolf. The sky above the ancient temple boiled with cloud and blood-red light, the full moon half-swallowed by a creeping shadow. The High Priestess of lunara knelt before the altar of stone, her silver hair fanned out like spilled light. Around her, a circle of acolytes chanted words older than kings, their trembling voices rising with the storm.
She had felt it for moons a fracture in the divine order, a heartbeat pulsing against the will of the goddess. Now it came.
The night of betrayal.
Beneath the carved effigy of lunara, the goddess of moon and balance, the altar cracked. Dust rained from the ceiling. A column of light burst upward, and the High Priestess's eyes rolled white as visions poured into her skull not of glory, but ruin.
She saw a woman giving birth beneath a crimson eclipse, the babe's cry shattering mirrors of starlight. She saw wolves devouring their kings, and the moon bleeding over a burning throne. And in that chaos stood a child, eyes like molten silver, marked by the goddess's own sigil.
A voice whispered through her low, cold, divine.
"When the moon bleeds, my daughter will rise.
When balance is broken, rebellion shall be born."
The Priestess gasped, clutching her chest. "A daughter?" she whispered. "A child of the moon?"
The voice hissed:
"She will not serve me. She will defy me."
The temple bells shattered, their metal warping from the force of the goddess's wrath. The acolytes screamed. Lightning split the altar in two, searing a single phrase into its face:
THE BLOOD MOON CHILD SHALL END THE GODS.
And far below the mountain, in the valley of Voss, a woman cried out in pain.
Elara Voss, once a priestess herself, writhed on the stone floor of a ruined cottage. Her husband keal held her hand, his grip trembling as blood slicked the floor beneath her. Outside, the air burned red. Wolves howled, disoriented by the eclipse's unnatural pull. Every creature felt the goddess's gaze turn away and something darker take its place.
"Hold her, keal!" the midwife shouted, her voice hoarse with fear. "The child she fights the light itself!"
Elara screamed again, and the moon turned fully crimson.
The ground split. Shadows crawled up the walls like living veins. Candles died. The midwife stumbled back as the newborn's first cry ripped through the night a sound not of innocence, but power.
The baby's skin shimmered faintly, her chest glowing with a small silver mark a crescent surrounded by flame.
Elara stared in awe. "The sign of Lunara…" she breathed.
But the midwife crossed herself. "No. Not Lunara's blessing her curse."
Darius bent close, eyes wide. "She's perfect," he whispered. "Our Ariana."
As he spoke her name, the red moon flared brighter, and the world trembled. A column of light speared through the clouds, striking the forest beyond. Wolves fell silent. In the distance, temple bells rang frantic, warning.
The goddess had seen.
And she was angry.
By dawn, word reached the Council of Alphas a child born under the Blood Moon, bearing Lunara's forbidden mark. The prophecy of the moon's betrayal had come to pass.
Atop the obsidian throne of the Dark Citadel, the Alpha King, lyon Drax's father, listened in silence. His golden eyes were unreadable.
"A moon-marked child born among the Voss?" growled one of his generals. "Blasphemy. That bloodline should have been purged with the last rebellion."
The king rose, his cloak a river of black fur. "Then purge it again," he said. "By sunrise, no one bearing the Voss name lives."
That night, in the Voss home, keal kissed Elara's forehead. "We must run. The king's guard will come for her."
Elara looked down at her daughter, the tiny silver glow pulsing faintly in her chest. "Run where? Even the moon betrays us."
He held her gaze. "Then we hide in the shadows. Where the goddess dares not look."
Outside, thunder rolled not from storm, but from the approach of armored wolves. Their howls split the night.
Elara gathered Ariana close, heart pounding. "Promise me," she whispered to her husband, "if we die, she lives."
Keal nodded, though his eyes betrayed the same terror. He kissed the mark on his daughter's chest. "Live, my moonfire. Even if the world burns."
The door shattered open. Soldiers poured in, blades glinting red.
Elara screamed as keal was struck down. The midwife grabbed the baby and ran through the back, vanishing into the forest. The trees swallowed her whole as fire consumed the Voss home.
Behind them, Elara's cry was drowned by the roar of flames and the echo of the goddess's voice carried on the wind:
"My child of rebellion has risen.
And for her birth, the world shall bleed."