CHAPTER 3 — LUNA QUEEN
1401 Words
The mirror never shattered. When Aria woke the next morning, everything was as it had been, except her. The crescent on her shoulder pulsed faintly beneath her skin, and every now and then, her vision caught flickers in reflections that didn’t belong. Teeth. Fur. A flick of power in the eyes staring back. Things that disappeared when she blinked.
She’d skipped breakfast. Skipped Madame Lune’s questions. Skipped the aching tightness in her chest that whispered something had shifted inside her — something ancient, something watching. Instead, she went looking.
Back to the Hollow.
The woods greeted her with silence and mist. The trees were wet with morning dew, but the deeper she walked, the less the sunlight reached. Her boots made a crackling sound as she stepped upon dried sticks, but asides that there was no noise. No birds. No wind. Just silence. Until a voice cut through it. "You shouldn’t be here." Aria spun around, instinct coiling tight in her chest.
Kael Rydan stood a few feet away, his black coat like ink against the trees, his expression unreadable. His arrival swept over her like a sudden chill in the air. Her breath caught without permission. "And yet," she said, forcing calm, "here I am, still with no answers, no clue as to what is happening to me and these visions." He stared at her for a long moment. The wind messing up his hair, not like he actually kept them made or anything, but he didn’t move.
"Do you want to die?"
The question was off, totally untelated to what she had being saying, She folded her arms. "Not particularly, but I do want answers honestly, and no one in town seems eager to provide them, everyone seemed scared to death of whatever and whoever." Kael took a slow step forward. The ground beneath his boots gave the softest crunch. "You saw something you weren’t supposed to. Something ancient. Dangerous. The mark on your skin isn’t a gift, Aria. It’s a curse."
"Then un-curse me, since you know so much of a word that's not meant to exist at all." He almost laughed. Almost. His mouth twitched, then hardened again. "It doesn’t work like that."
"So explain it to me. What were those wolves, cause gods know, they weren't ordinary, and the one i met before the other, why does he feel... familiar?"
Kael looked away, jaw tight. Something flickered in his gaze, memory or maybe regret.
"Because he has always watched you, known you and it's not some kind of 'thing', it's a he."
"How?" Another step forward.
"Because you were one of us. Once. Before you were... taken." Her stomach flipped , confusion and something else brewed. "W...wwwhat do you mean by one of us? Who are the 'us' and Taken? By who?" He hesitated. The pause stretched too long and in that moment of silence, she saw it — the shadow of pain crossing his face. Not just the physical kind. This was older. Deeper. Worn into him like a scar. "Me."
The trees bent slightly with the rising wind. Aria stepped back, her breath catching. "I don’t understand."
Kael's voice dipped to a near whisper, nearly inaudible.
"There has always been a realm, a world of some sorts, where the unimaginables existed and in that world, you existed and yet you died. We all thought you did. We watched you burn with the rest of them, but the moon... she plays her own games." Aria blinked. "I died? You burnt me?"
"You should have and yes, i did, it was what was necessary." His icy blues eyes flared, not with anger, but with something worse. Fear. "That mark means you're tethered to something older than either of us. You’re not just marked by the Obsidian Alpha. You’re his equal. His mate."
Her breath hitched in her throat. Kael stepped closer again, too close. She could smell him now, sharp and stormy, like wet stone and frost. "You need to stay away from me. From this place. From everything. You don't know what you're waking up."
Aria’s voice barely rose above a whisper. "Then why are you still here?" He leaned in, close enough that the air between them seemed to tremble. "Because if I let you go, he will come for you, and if he comes, none of us survive." She looked up into his eyes, her pulse thudding hard. "Who is he?"
Kael’s voice cracked like thunder. "The wolf who bowed to you. The one who once destroyed a kingdom for a girl who looked just like you."
Her throat went dry. "What happened to her?" Kael turned.
"She burned."
-------------------------------------------------
He started to walk away. "Wait!" Aria chased after him. "Tell me who you are. Really." Kael stopped. His back to her. His silence said everything before his voice followed. "I am the last of the Obsidian bloodline. Alpha of what remains, and I remember the screams of that night. Every one of them." Lightning cracked above them, sudden and sharp. She stepped forward, soaked in confusion. "Why me? Why now?" He didn’t answer.
A low growl split the air. Aria froze. Kael turned sharply, his hand outstretched, his body tense. "Behind you. Don’t move." The trees around them rustled violently. Something heavy moved between them, crunching the underbrush. A massive grey wolf, monstrous, twisted, wild, stepped out from the shadows. Its eyes glowed gold with madness. Its body was warped, pulsing unnaturally, as though caught in a half-shift that never finished. "Rogue," Kael growled.
The beast lunged. Kael moved faster than she could track. One second, he was man, the next, he was something else entirely. His body cracked and shifted. Fur tore through his coat. His bones lengthened. His eyes blazed silver. He slammed into the rogue mid-air. They hit the ground in a blur of claws and roars. Blood sprayed across the forest floor. Trees trembled. Aria ducked behind a tree, her heart in her throat. Kael’s shoulder was torn open. The rogue bit again, deeper. She didn’t think. She ran forward, grabbed a fallen branch, and swung with all her strength. The wood cracked across the rogue’s skull. It staggered just enough. Kael surged up with a snarl and buried his claws into its throat.
The rogue twitched. Collapsed. Kael stood over the body, panting. Blood dripped from his chest, staining the moss. Aria ran to him. "Are you hurt?" He grabbed her wrist, his grip tight. "Don’t ever do that again." She flinched. "I was trying to help—"
"You don’t understand. You can’t be hurt. Not now."
"Why? Because of the mark?"
He stepped back, gaze dark and wild. "Because you're the beginning of the end." She stared, heart pounding. Before she could answer, another voice spoke.
Cold. Calm. Amused.
"She’s awake, then." They turned. A man stood at the edge of the clearing. Tall. Pale. Dressed in black robes, his eyes like twin embers set in shadow. He looked like something carved from a nightmare. He smiled. Not kindly. "We’ve found the Luna Queen." Kael’s stance shifted instantly. Between Aria and the stranger. His claws still slick with blood.
"You are not welcome here."
"Neither is she."
The robed man’s gaze settled on Aria. And in that moment, she felt it, a tug in her blood. Cold. Hollow. "You carry the moon’s mark, girl, but you don’t remember, do you?" Aria’s mouth went dry. "Who are you?"
"A shadow. A reminder. A priest of the old blood. And your resurrection has consequences." Kael growled. "Leave. Now." But the man didn’t flinch. He looked at Aria again. "He can’t protect you. Not from what comes. Not from him."
Kael lunged at the man, but the man was already gone. Melted into mist. Only his voice remained.
"The Luna Queen returns. And with her, the end begins."
-------------------------------------------------
That night, Aria sat alone in her attic. The mirror shimmered faintly across from her, cracked but unbroken. The mark on her shoulder pulsed steadily, like a second heartbeat, and in its rhythm, something whispered back, not in words but in memory. Wolves. Fire. A silver crown and a name that burned her lips when she tried to speak it. She stared at her reflection, words of the man in black robes re-echoing,
The Luna Queen returns, and with her, the end begins, and with that, a kingdom waited
- Writer
