MOONFALL REQUIEM

Liora The forest is too quiet tonight, no crickets, no wind, just my breath fogging white in the cold air. I shouldn't be out here alone but Old Crayson needs moonpetal for his fever, and I'm the only one stupid enough to collect it under a dark moon. Finn would call me an i***t, he'd be right. I'm almost back to the border when the smell hits me, copper mixed with something sharper….something that makes my skin crawl. Blood. The wolf is massive when I find him, lying in the dirt with silver blood pooling beneath his body. His breathing comes in shallow gasps that sound like death crawling closer, veins under his black fur glow silver, spreading like poison. "Don't touch him." I turned around, Mara's ghost flickers beside me like a dying candle. "He's dying," I whisper. "Good. let him die," Mara says, her voice cold. "His kind brings nothing but sorrow to yours." But something pulls me closer, a tug low in my chest that feels painful, like I've been here before kneeling beside him even though I know I haven't. "Just enough to stop the silver from reaching his heart," I breathe, placing my hand on his fur. The world erupts. Silver light bursts from my palm, too bright, too wild, spiraling around us both. The ground shakes, my chest burns, my veins light up like fire threading through my skin. "Liora stop," Mara shouts, "your magic is feeding his curse. Stop… before it consumes you both." "I can't," I choke out, my hand is stuck, energy pouring out of me faster than I can control. "I can't let go." The wolf's body jolts…. his head lifts, his eyes snap open, bright gold, burning like trapped sunlight, staring straight into mine. My heart lurches because his eyes look familiar, terrifyingly familiar. Then a voice whispers in my head, deep and rough. Found you. The magic shatters like breaking glass, throwing me backward, I gasp as my vision spins. The wolf collapses but he's breathing, alive because of me. "You don't understand what you've done." Mara's face twists with fear, "you never should have touched him." I stare at the mark glowing on my skin, a crescent wrapped around a broken star, thrumming like a second heartbeat. The wolf stirs, his body shifting, bones cracking, fur melting into skin, until a man lies in his place. He's tall, broad shouldered, his skin marked with silver veins like cracked ice, bleeding and shaking but somehow beautiful in a terrifying way. His eyes open, still gold, pinning me in place. He stares at my face. My throat, the hand that touched him, recognition flickers across his expression, raw and painful. "Tell me your name?" his voice comes out rough. "Liora," I whisper, "Liora Vale." Horror washes over his face. "No," he breathes, shaking his head, "not again." "What do you mean?" I ask. "I don't know you." He tries to sit up, collapses with a sound of pain, silver veins pulse brighter. "You don't remember, they made sure of that." "Who made sure…what are you talking about?" "The goddess cursed us," he says, laughing but it sounds like dying. "Cursed me to find you lifetime after lifetime, always too late." My hands shake, "the poison is making you crazy." "Then why did your magic recognize me?" he pins me with those gold eyes. "Why did it react like that when you claim we're strangers." I don't have an answer, my magic has never done that before…. never burned that desperate. "Six times now," he continues… "Six lifetimes where you're reborn without memory, where I find you too late, where we die together." "Stop," I back away, "I'm not part of some curse." "You're the Moonborn," he says, "and I'm the Alpha cursed to hunt you." Above us the moon cracks, a thin silver line splitting across its surface. "What's your name?" I ask. "Darius," he whispers, "Darius Blackthorn, and you've killed me six times already." Footsteps crash through undergrowth, torches flare between trees, voices shout. A man who looks like Darius but colder steps into the clearing, guards with raised spears flank him. His eyes scan the scene and he smiles slowly. "Brother," he says softly, "what have you done?" "Rowan don't," Darius tries to stand, can't. "Don't what?" Rowan's smile widens as he looks at the mark on my palm. "Don't tell her the truth, don't explain she's not just some witch." "What am I?" I ask. Rowan steps closer. "You're the only thing that can kill an Alpha, the Moonborn, created by the goddess to end my brother's bloodline." The mark flares hot, Darius gasps as it burns into his skin….light connects us, silver threads binding us together. "And judging by that bond" Rowan says, voice dropping. "You've already started killing him." My knees buckle. "No, I was trying to save him." "You can't save what you were made to destroy." Rowan signals his guards. "Take them both, the goddess has been waiting centuries for this." Darius reaches for me as guards grab my arms, our fingers almost touch. "Run," he says, "Liora run." But I can't move, can't breathe, the mark burns hotter with every second we're pulled apart. "Let her go," Darius snarls at the guards holding me. His voice drops into something animal, "let her go or I'll rip your throats out." "You can barely stand brother." Rowan laughs, "you're in no position to threaten anyone." The silver veins spread further up Darius's neck, across his jaw, he's dying right in front of me. "Please," I beg Rowan, "he needs help." "He needs to die," Rowan says simply, "he's needed to die for six lifetimes now, you keep interfering, keep bringing him back, the cycle never ends because you won't let it." "I don't understand." "You will," Rowan turns away. "When your memories return, when you remember what you did to him the first time. You'll understand perfectly." Guards drag us in opposite directions….Darius fights them even though he can barely stay conscious. "Don't let them take you to the fortress," he shouts at me. "Liora whatever happens don't go there." "Why not?" I scream back. His eyes meet mine one last time, gold and desperate and full of something that looks like goodbye. "Because that's where you'll remember," he says, "and when you remember, one of us has to die.”