The Lethal Luna

SOPHIA They knew something was wrong the moment I was born. The midwife dropped me but I didn’t cry, I screamed. The ground trembled and the fire in the corner flared blue. My mother’s mouth opened in horror before she forced herself to smile and call me “blessed.” All of them were afraid. They said my eyes glowed violet before they should have opened, the blood moon outside cracked the sky because of me. I was a Sapphire, daughter of a royal bloodline blessed by the Moon Goddess. Our family ruled the forest. Our wolves were graceful and feared. My father, King Tinus, called us “keepers of peace.” But there was no peace inside me even as a child. By the time I was ten, I had stopped being invited to the temple. A priest fainted after I touched the altar. My oldest brother wouldn’t spar with me anymore after I sent him flying across the courtyard without laying a finger on him. “Don’t be afraid,” my mother said once, smoothing my hair. “You’re just… different.” But I saw the way she flinched when I lost my temper. I saw how the servants whispered. I saw the soldiers standing just outside my chambers, swords always strapped on. My power wasn’t a gift. It was a countdown. And still, they kept me close. Locked up like a holy relic or a dangerous artefact until the war came to our doorstep. Widow’s Peak had always been jealous. Alpha Markus claimed our land, our lineage, our connection to prophecy. He said we twisted the Goddess’s will. That our blood was unnatural. He wanted our forest. While my siblings trained for war, I was kept hidden behind enchanted doors. “For your protection,” they said. “For everyone’s protection,” I realized. I started feeling this vibration under my skin, like thunder trapped in my bones. When I was angry, windows cracked. When I was sad, wolves howled in their sleep. When I was scared… the air would split open. They trained my brothers to fight with swords and claws but no one trained me, no one was capable, they just waited and when the attack came, they weren’t ready. None of us were. It was the Moon Festival. The palace was lit with silver lanterns, music drifted through the courtyards, our people danced and drank under the blood-orange sky. I stood on the balcony, locked behind glass, watching it all from above. Dressed in silk I didn’t choose, my wrists smelled of sage and ash from the priestesses' earlier blessing. They didn’t let me attend, only observe, like I was the storm they feared would ruin the harvest. Below, my brothers laughed, my sisters wore crowns of white moonpetals, my father raised a glass and no one looked up. That’s when the howling began. It didn’t come from one of us. It was strange and off-beat. Too close for strange wolves. The first scream sliced through the music like a blade, then another. I heard glass shattered, something caught fire and people ran. I pressed both hands to the window, my eyes pierced through and I saw flames climbed the garden wall. Wolves swarmed in black armour, they were from Widow’s Peak. The cowards attacked during sacred rites and worse, they had help. I saw one of our guards open the gate. A traitor. The doors to my chamber burst open. A priestess grabbed me by the arm. “We must hide you, now!” “Where’s my family?” “They have gone to fight and you stay.” I didn’t argue. She dragged me into the old ceremonial hall, bolted the doors, lit incense, and began chanting. But I could hear every scream, every growl, every life fading like a dying star. I felt it in my bones. I stood up. My breath hitched. My eyes burned. I could feel them, my brothers, one falling, my sister choking on smoke and my mother calling my name I screamed, it wasn’t just sound. It was force. It felt raw, wild, and unchained. The walls cracked. The floor split. The silver altar exploded into dust. Light poured from my body like liquid fire. The priestesses collapsed. Somewhere far away, I heard stone crashing, and bodies hitting the ground. Then silence and darkness followed. ~ When I opened my eyes, the world was still. There were no more screams, no more fire, just thick, choking dust and the scent of blood. I was on the floor of the ceremonial hall. Cracks spidered out beneath my palms. The altar was gone. The priestesses lay crumpled like broken dolls, they were silent and still. My ears rang and my fingertips tingled. I stood up slowly. The door was already off its hinges. Outside, the palace was unrecognizable. The walls had crumbled, stones were black with ash and statues shattered. Trees were torn from the earth and bodies—goddess—there were bodies everywhere. Some were ours and some wore the black armour of Widow’s Peak but most of them… were my family. My brother Cade’s body was still half-shifted, frozen mid-transformation, eyes wide open. Liane’s fingers were curled around a dagger she never got to use. My father… my father was face down near the steps, his cloak torn and blood-soaked. I couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t a battle, it was a m******e and I had done it. I stumbled forward. The air pulsed around me, like it still remembered the blast I had unleashed. I didn’t know how far it had spread, how many I had killed, how many I had meant to save. No one had survived the blast zone. None of the Widow’s Peak soldiers, including the traitor. Not even the ones I loved. I dropped to my knees, fists clenched in the dirt. I hadn’t meant to, Moon Goddess. I hadn’t meant to but it was all gone now; the Sapphire line, my blood, my home and I was the only one left standing. ~ They found me the next morning, still kneeling in the ruins. A few warriors had survived, the ones stationed far beyond the palace walls. They came in slowly, stepping around rubble, their eyes wide and full of fear and none of them got close to me. I wasn’t crying anymore. I was just... still and numb. One of them with blood on her face, whispered the word “monster” before catching herself. Another muttered that the Moon Goddess had turned her face from me. I stood up and they flinched, like I might strike again. “I didn’t mean to,” I said. My voice was rough and quiet. “They were my family.” They didn’t answer. Later that night, the council met in what was left of the library. I wasn’t invited, I didn’t need to be. I knew what they would decide. The Sapphire bloodline was gone. The people were scared, too many had died and they needed someone to blame so they chose me. I was sentenced to immediate exile with no trial and no farewell. One elder handed me a satchel with food and a knife. Nobody would look me in the eye, no one touched me. I left barefoot, covered in soot and dried blood. The wind was cold, my body ached and behind me, the home I had once known burned slowly under the light of a half moon and I didn’t look back. ~ The forest didn’t welcome me. It swallowed me. There were no warm fires and no walls. Just trees older than names and silence that stretched too long. I walked for days with blistered feet and blood beneath my fingernails. I hunted, slept in branches, learned the sounds of approaching feet and how to kill with a stone. I learned to feel my power pulsing just beneath my skin, like a tide that never stopped rising. I didn’t trust it but I stopped fearing it. The stories spread faster than I could run. Some said I’d gone mad, others said I was a ghost, or cursed, or possessed by the Goddess herself. They weren’t completely wrong. Bounty hunters came first, greedy men who thought I was just a girl with a price on her head, a price put on me by Widow’s Peak Pack. Then came wolves sent by rival packs. Each time, I fought. Each time, I survived. But I knew they wouldn’t stop coming especially not Widow’s Peak. Alpha Markus claimed my family’s land after the m******e. He said I destroyed them out of greed and madness. His pack moved in like locusts, burning what was left. He told the world that the Sapphires were finished but I was still alive. Years passed. I stayed in the shadows, watching and waiting. My power grew colder and sharper. I no longer flinched when I used it. Then I heard the news: Markus was dead. His son, Rory Rydir, had taken the throne. A new Alpha who was more brutal, more strategic and more obsessed with control. I knew he would come for me next and that was the beginning of everything.