Chapter 225
I filled vial after vial. Seven in total. An unholy number. A sacred curse. Elowen’s skin was pale now. Sweat soaked her collarbone. Her
head lolled slightly, but her eyes never shut.
Her mind was somewhere else. I knew it.
“She speaks to her wolf,” the Blood Goddess snarled in my ear. “That beast is keeping her sane. Rip it out.”
“Elowen,” I leaned in, whispering with venom, “I wonder how much longer you’ll hear that mutt in your head. You think she’ll save you?
That creature is just the last scrap of hope you’ve got left. Maybe we’ll cage her next.”
Her lips curled. “You can try,” she croaked, her voice hoarse. “Lyssira will rip your fucking soul out.”
And fuck me, the way her eyes lit up when she said it, like a dying star spitting fire before it implodes.
“Enough,” the Blood Goddess hissed. “Take her voice. Take her wolf. Take her soul.”
I stood up, blood vials in hand, grinning.
“We’re going to unmake you, Elowen Skye,” I said softly. “And when we’re done… you’ll beg to serve.”
I walked out to deliver the vials to the labs. Behind me, Vaela started singing. And the shears gleamed again.
Selene, Moon Goddess POV
I watched as Elowen screamed.
Watched as that venomous bitch Vaela defiled her hair with crude, mortal shears. Watched as Lucien carved into her divine skin like she
was nothing more than livestock. They took her blood like it belonged to them. They shackled her light like they could own it.
And I. Could. Not. Intervene. Not yet. But I could witness. And I did. Every cry. Every flinch. Every time her eyes dimmed, but never went
out.
My Chosen.
My fury simmered in silver threads through the realm. Stars blinked out. The tides slowed. The very moon above Elowen’s prison pulsed
with my rage.
“Enough.”
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Chapter 225
When they left her, bleeding, humiliated, chained and trembling, I appeared beside her. Not in full form. Not yet. Just a ripple of light and wrath, cold and blinding. She couldn’t see me. But she felt me. I ran a glowing hand down her cheek, her lips twitching in sleep. Then I placed my palm over her sheared scalp and willed.
With a pulse of lunar magic, her hair began to grow. Not as it was, but even more radiant. Silver, blue, purple and green, shimmering like living auroras. It spilled over her shoulders, down to her hips, glowing faintly even in the gloom.
A mark of defiance. My mark.
“I will not let them break you,” I whispered. “I will not let you be forgotten.”
I reached into her soul and poured in strength. Cool moonlight soaked into her marrow, easing the ache, sharpening her fire, steadying
the thunder in her pulse. Then I stood in the center of my divine realm and lifted my voice across the heavens.
“Verenya. Elanithra. Soltharion. Now.”
They came like storms. Verenya arrived first, barefoot and radiant, soil blooming with every step. Her eyes burned green gold, and vines
twisted protectively around her arms.
“She is ours, Selene. They torture the balance with this blasphemy. I say we pull their fortress into the roots of the earth and let it rot.”
Elanithra shimmered into view, cloaked in nebulae, her voice soft but deadly. “Her dreams are fractured. I feel her slipping. I have already
placed stars above her cell that whisper strength into her sleep. But it’s not enough. Not with Raelith so near…”
Soltharion erupted in a blaze of golden fire. “This has gone far enough. That thing masquerading as a goddess? It walks in our realm
unpunished. We are the old blood. The first breath. She will be silenced, or I will burn the realms to salt.”
“She hides behind old law,” I growled. “If we interfere directly, we risk imbalance.”
“But Raelith already interferes,” Verenya hissed. “She twists the sacred. Violates the vessel. There is no balance left to protect.”
“We gave Elowen our gifts,” Elanithra said quietly. “We lit her flame. And now the world watches to see if we let it die.”
I clenched my fists and stared down at the mortal realm. At Elowen.
“I say we act,” I snarled. “But not in fire. Not in spectacle.”
“In what then?” Soltharion growled.
“In wrath,” I said. “Measured. Precise. With roots. With stars. With the fury of a goddess wronged.”
The others fell silent. Then, as one, we nodded. And across the void, across dimensions and time and prophecy, a soft breeze blew into Elowen’s prison.
Chapter 225
It smelled of lavender and fire. Of soil and moonlight. Of hope.
And beneath her chains, her fingers twitched.
