Bride of The Eclipse

I was not born into peace. I was born into a love story that was already rotting from the inside. I had just learned my own name—Selene Thaloriel—there was another story written over my existence. A story that belonged to my mother, the Moon Goddess, Lunareth. A story I only came to understand much later, when silence had already become my closest companion. This is how I was left alone. And this is how love became something I could never trust again. My mother was not always the Moon Goddess they feared from below the skies. Once, she was light without distance. They say she was the kind of divine being who made even the stars forget their duty. When she walked through the heavens, constellations shifted slightly just to follow her path. She was gentle in a way that made eternity feel less lonely. And then she met my father. Kaeltharion. The God of Thunder. If my mother was silence, he was chaos. If she was moonlight, he was stormfire. No one ever thought they would belong in the same story, let alone the same breath. But they did what gods are never supposed to do. They loved each other. At first, it was almost beautiful. I have seen the records in the celestial archives—fragments of memory sealed in light. I’ve seen how the sky used to behave when they stood together. Thunder would soften instead of shatter. The moon would glow brighter, as if it finally had a reason to exist beyond orbiting emptiness. For a time, even I think the heavens believed in them. But love among gods is never simple. And my father was never only hers. There was a mortal servant. Her name was Elira. A name that should have meant nothing in the realm of gods. A name that should have been forgotten the moment it was spoken. Mortals were never meant to matter in divine affairs—they were brief, fragile, passing things. But she mattered. Not to my mother at first. Not until it was too late. I was told Elira was quiet. Obedient. The kind of mortal who lowered her gaze even when no one was looking at her. She served in my father’s court, tending to divine relics and offerings, existing only at the edges of godhood. And yet somehow, she crossed the line that should never have been crossed. She was seen. By him. My father. I never asked my mother how it began. I think even she refused to remember it clearly. But betrayal, I’ve learned, does not need a beginning to destroy someone. It only needs continuation. The signs came slowly. A meeting that lasted too long. A laugh shared where there should have been silence. A mortal name spoken without contempt. Then the impossible truth—Elira was carrying his child. I still do not know if my mother broke that day, or if she simply stopped pretending she would not. But I know what she did after. Because it became the reason I exist the way I do now. She stood at the edge of the Celestial Lake, where creation itself reflects in fractured light. I have seen that place once, long after everything fell apart, and even then I could feel what she must have felt. Like looking into a version of yourself that refuses to answer back. My father stood behind her that day. I do not know what he expected. Forgiveness, perhaps. Or silence. Gods are often arrogant enough to believe betrayal can be repaired with explanation. But my mother did not turn around immediately. When she finally spoke, her voice was calm. Too calm. “You let a mortal touch what was never meant to decay.” My father answered with thunder in his tone, though I do not remember his exact words. It does not matter. Words spoken by guilty gods are always the same—they mean nothing and everything at once. What mattered was my mother’s silence afterward. Because silence, from her, was never emptiness. It was decision. And decisions from the Moon Goddess do not remain personal for long. They become laws. I was there when she made her choice. And I have always felt its shape around me, like an invisible cage made of consequence. She left the Celestial Lake that day and went to the oldest place in existence—the sanctuary of her mother, the First Moon, who had long since faded into cosmic rest. There, she was reminded of what she was meant to be. Not a lover. Not a wife. A ruler. A force. A balance between darkness and light. And when she returned, she was no longer the goddess who loved a storm. She was the Moon that judged it. That is how my story began.