Chapter 4: The Moon-Sickness
305 Words
By nightfall, Caelen was burning with fever.
Elara had tried everything—cool cloths, herbs, water laced with willow bark—but his skin shimmered with a strange glow and radiated heat unlike anything she’d ever felt before. Mortal illnesses she could treat, but this… this was something else.
He lay sprawled across the couch, his silver hair damp with sweat, his breath shallow.
“Caelen,” she whispered, brushing his cheek with the back of her hand.
His skin pulsed faintly under her touch, like moonlight trapped beneath flesh.
He moaned softly, words slipping from his lips in a language she didn’t know—lilting, beautiful, and full of longing.
Elara’s chest tightened.
She didn’t understand why she cared so much. He was a stranger. A fae prince. Dangerous, perhaps even deadly. But something about him drew her in, like a thread pulling gently at her soul.
Suddenly, his hand shot out—grabbing her wrist.
His eyes opened, glowing faintly. “The crown…” he rasped. “It’s waking.”
Elara froze. “What crown?”
He blinked at her, dazed. “Your blood… it’s not mortal. Not fully.”
She shook her head. “That’s not possible.”
He fell back again, mumbling words too soft to catch. Then silence.
Her heart pounded. She stared at him, at the strange shimmer beneath his skin, at the way the light bent ever so slightly around his body.
Not mortal. The words clung to her like dew.
In the silence, she turned toward the small mirror above the mantle. Just for a moment.
And there it was.
A faint glimmer on her brow—like a delicate ring of petals made from light. Barely visible. Almost imagined.
She stepped back, heart racing.
Was she dreaming?
Or had something deep inside her begun to bloom?
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