POV: Elara Ashwyn
The glowing won't stop.
I've tried everything—cold water, breathing exercises, pressing my hands against my belly to calm the power—but my skin still radiates that eerie silver-white light. It's died down from the panic of earlier, but it's still there, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
And beneath the palace, those chains are still breaking.
I give up on sleep and wander, letting my feet carry me through corridors I've come to recognize. The palace is quieter at night, though guards still patrol. No one tries to stop me—apparently, Luna Queens have freedom of movement.
I find the library by accident.
Or maybe by instinct. The doors are carved with the same twin moons as the thrones, and something inside me pulls toward it like magnetism. When I slip inside, my breath catches.
The library is vast. Shelves stretch impossibly high, filled with thousands of books. Candles burn without flame—shadows providing light, the King's magic woven into the very stone. And sitting at a carved table, reading by shadow-light, is the Obsidian King.
He looks different without his full authority cloaking him. Younger, maybe. More vulnerable. A creature of terrible power choosing to sit quietly with a book.
He doesn't look up immediately. When he finally does, I see recognition in his glowing eyes.
"Couldn't sleep," he says. It's not a question.
"The chains," I say quietly. "Beneath the palace. They're still breaking."
"Yes." He closes his book. "The seal is weakening faster than predicted. Your power is accelerating the process."
"Can you stop it?" I ask.
"No," he says simply. "The seal was always temporary. A thousand-year stopgap. Your daughter's birth was always going to trigger its collapse. You can't stop a prophecy, Elara. You can only prepare for it."
I sit across from him, my glowing skin casting strange shadows across the table.
"What are you reading?" I ask, needing to talk about something—anything—other than apocalyptic prophecies.
He holds up the book. The cover is ancient, binding cracked with age. "Records of the Moon Priestesses. Personal journals, mostly. Accounts of what they could do. How they lived before the Moon Court hunted them to extinction."
My skin prickles.
"The Moon Court claims they never existed," I whisper.
"The Moon Court lies," he says flatly. "They erased the Priestesses from history because those women represented something dangerous: proof that power doesn't require transformation. Proof that the Moon's blessing isn't necessary to matter."
He stands and walks to a shelf, pulling down another book. This one is bound in silver leather, and the moment I see it, my daughter kicks.
Hard. Violently. Like she's trying to break free.
"This is a personal account," the King says, opening the book carefully. "Written by a Priestess named Selene. She was—"
He stops, his masked face tilting toward me.
"She was your ancestor," he finishes quietly.
I can't breathe.
"How do you know that?" I demand.
"Because I knew her," he says, and there's something broken in his voice. "I was her mate. Before the Moon Court destroyed everything. Before they hunted her bloodline to extinction."
The library spins.
"You said in my chamber that the sealed Priestess beneath the palace was your mate," I say slowly. "But if Selene was your mate a thousand years ago, then—"
"The Moon Court sealed her body beneath the Obsidian Throne the night they destroyed my kingdom," the King says. "I've spent a thousand years trying to find a way to free her. Trying to find someone with her bloodline who could break the seal."
He steps closer, and I don't back away.
"And then you fell into my territory, pregnant with a daughter carrying Moon Priestess blood. And I realized—"
He extends his hand toward my belly.
"May I?"
I should say no. I should be angry that he's been using me, that everything has been calculated. But looking at him—this ancient, lonely creature who's been waiting a thousand years for his lost love—I can't refuse.
"Yes," I whisper.
His hand is warm as it touches my belly. My daughter responds immediately, kicking directly against his palm. I watch his entire body go rigid.
"She recognizes you," I breathe. "How is that possible?"
"Because she carries both bloodlines," a new voice says.
Sage Elira emerges from between the shelves, and her ancient eyes are wet with tears.
"Don't you understand, child?" she says to me. "Your daughter isn't just a Moon Priestess. She carries the King's bloodline too. That night, a thousand years ago, when Selene was sealed beneath the palace—she was pregnant with his child. The Moon Court didn't know. They sealed her with his heir still in her womb."
The King's hand trembles against my belly.
"For a thousand years, they've been trapped together," Elira continues. "Mother and child, preserved in shadow magic. Waiting. Always waiting."
I look at the King's masked face.
"Your daughter is in the seal," I say. Understanding crashes through me like a tidal wave. "The child Selene carried. She's still alive beneath us."
"Yes," the King says, his voice hollow. "And in approximately three months, your daughter will be born. And when she is—when she fully awakens her Priestess power—the seal will shatter completely. Both of them will wake."
He pulls his hand away from my belly, but not before I feel another violent kick.
That's when the chains beneath the palace don't just break.
They explode.
The entire library shakes. Books tumble from shelves. The candles flicker. A sound like the earth screaming erupts from beneath our feet, and for a moment, I think the palace is collapsing.
But it's not destruction. It's awakening.
A pulse of ancient magic erupts from beneath the palace—so powerful, so vast, that I fall to my knees. The King catches me, his arms around me, and I feel his entire body shaking.
Through the library floor, I see it.
A door carved from shadow-stone is opening. And from within that door, silver-white light begins to pour. Not aggressive. Searching. Reaching upward like roots toward sunlight.
"She's waking," Sage Elira whispers. "After a thousand years, Selene is waking."
The King pulls me closer, his masked face pressing against my hair.
"If she wakes before your daughter is born," he says quietly, "the magic will be unstable. Chaotic. Both Priestesses awakening at once could tear this kingdom apart. Could tear you apart."
He releases me, looking directly at me.
"We have three months to prepare for something that should take a thousand. Three months to prevent a catastrophe that might destroy everything I've built."
Behind us, the silver light from the opening door grows brighter.
"Three months, Elara," he says, "before the woman I've loved for a thousand years wakes up to discover that I've fallen for someone else."