Moonwater Does Not Accept the Dead
849 Words
CHAPTER TWELVE
Darian POV
The forest grew darker as I carried Roseline deeper into the northern woods
toward the one place wolves only whispered about in reverence and fear.
The Moon Goddess Lake.
The child she saved clung to my side, tiny hand gripping Roseline’s limp fingers, refusing to let go. His steps were small but determined, as if he understood something no one else did.
Branches parted as if moved by unseen hands.
The air grew colder.
Leaves shimmered with a silvery glow.
We were close.
I tightened my hold on Roseline’s fragile form. Her head rested against my shoulder, her hair brushing my collarbone, her skin still faintly warm, warm enough to keep hope alive.
“Don’t worry,” I murmured to her unconscious form. “You’re going somewhere safe.”
The boy looked up at me.
“Is she… gonna wake up?”
I didn’t answer immediately.
Truth? I didn’t know.
But I said softly, “If anywhere can bring her back… it’s the lake.”
We stepped into a clearing, and stopped.
There it was.
The Moon Goddess Lake.
Silent.
Enormous.
A perfect mirror of the sky.
The water glowed faintly in pulses, as if it had a heartbeat of its own. Silver mist floated above its surface. Wolves had told stories, how the lake only responded to those chosen by the goddess.
Most wolves lived and died without ever seeing it.
I took a step forward
And the lake rippled.
As if greeting her.
The child gasped.
“She likes Roseline…”
I swallowed hard, my throat tight.
“Help me,” I whispered to the water. “She fought for us… she deserves more than this.”
The lake brightened.
Silver light licked across its surface like soft flames.
I waded in, boots sinking into the cold mud, the water rising to my knees, then waist, then chest. Roseline floated in my arms, weightless, her hair drifting like dark silk around us.
When the lake touched her skin, the water glowed brighter.
Then
Her veins lit up.
A soft silver pulse.
The child on the shore cried out, “She’s shining!”
I held her carefully, lowering her until the water covered her shoulders. My pulse raced when the lake reacted violently—swirling around her, wrapping her in luminous currents.
The water did not accept the dead.
But it welcomed her.
She wasn’t gone.
Not completely.
“Goddess…” I murmured. “If you’re listening, this girl deserves your mercy.”
A wind swept across the clearing.
The trees trembled.
The water rose in a spiral around Roseline’s body, shimmering with divine energy.
A faint whisper echoed across the lake:
“Not mercy. Destiny.”
I froze.
The child backed up in fear, clutching a tree trunk.
Roseline’s chest jerked once
Then stilled again.
The lake’s glow deepened, turning from silver to pale blue, then back to silver. Her wolf, weak, buried, responded with a tiny pulse.
She was in between.
Not alive.
Not dead.
Not gone.
Not here.
A suspended breath of fate.
Then
A furious snarl shattered the moment.
Kael burst into the clearing, eyes burning, breath ragged, wolf under his skin.
“Darian!”
His gaze locked onto Roseline’s glowing body, half-submerged in the sacred water.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I kept my back straight, my arms still cradling her.
“You were going to leave her in the forest,” I said calmly. “I am not.”
Kael stepped toward the shore
The lake roared.
Water exploded upward, crashing into the ground, forming a barrier between him and Roseline. Mist whipped like claws. The glow brightened so intensely it hurt to look at.
Kael flinched back, eyes wide.
“What....what is this?”
I met his astonished gaze.
“The lake is rejecting you.”
His jaw clenched.
“That’s impossible.”
“It only rejects those unworthy,” I said quietly.
Kael’s chest heaved.
He stared at Roseline as if seeing her for the first time.
“Roseline,” he whispered.
Her name trembled off his tongue.
“I—just let me near her"
But the water surged taller, spiraling upward in a shimmering wall.
The goddess would not let him touch her.
Not now.
Not after everything.
Kael growled, fists clenching, eyes bright with something between rage and desperation.
“What’s happening to her?” he demanded.
I looked down at the girl in my arms, her body glowing softly beneath the water, her hair drifting like she belonged to the lake.
I whispered the truth:
“She’s changing. The goddess is claiming her.”
Kael staggered back as if struck.
“She’s… she’s coming back?”
I shook my head.
“She’s between life and death. And she won’t return the same.”
A single tear slid down the child’s cheek as he whispered:
“Roseline is becoming light…”
The lake pulsed one final time
a bright, blinding flash
And Roseline’s body sank deeper, suspended in silver water, wrapped in divine glow.
Her transformation had begun.
- Writer
