SCARLETT
Darkness.
But not empty.
It pressed in around me, thick as smoke, yet glowing faintly silver at the edges. My body floated, weightless, as though the world I’d left behind had been stripped away.
A figure emerged from the mist. Tall. Cloaked in moonlight, her hair streaming like silver rivers, her eyes carved from the same crescent mark that burned in my skin.
I knew her before she spoke.
“You are me,” she said, her voice carrying the weight of centuries. “And I am you. The last Moonbane.”
My chest clenched. “What’s happening to me?”
Her gaze was both pitiful and sharp as a blade. “You’ve awoken the bond before its time. You’ve claimed more than the Moon Goddess intended. Fire. Storm. Shadow. Wolves. Each tethered to you. Each hungry to own you.”
“I didn’t choose them,”
