MOONLIGHT BOUND

Lunara's POV They said whoever married me would inherit the strength of the moon itself. I grew up hearing it the way other children heard lullabies. Whispered, half-believed, dangerous. The women would lower their voices when I passed. The men would stare too long, then look away like they’d been burned. Even as a child, I knew my name didn’t belong to me. It belonged to prophecy. To hunger. To fear. I was born during a blood moon, or so the elders claimed. The sky split open that night, red and swollen, and the wolves howled until the ground trembled beneath the village. My mother nearly died bringing me into the world. Some said that was the first sign, that the moon always took a price. By the time I was old enough to understand words, I already understood silence. I learned when to speak and when not to. I learned that questions were dangerous. I learned that being special was another word for being trapped. They marked the chosen girls early, but they never marked me. That was the strange part. No moon mark appeared on my skin. No glowing sigil, no scar blessed by silver light. Just plain skin and too many eyes watching, waiting for something that never came. “It will appear when she’s ready,” the elders said. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe the prophecy was wrong. That hope lived quietly in my chest for years, small and stubborn. I clung to it when I fetched water from the river. When I ground herbs with the other girls. When I watched the sons of hunters train in the square, their laughter loud and careless. I wanted ordinary. I wanted to marry someone who loved me, not someone who wanted what lived inside my bones. But prophecies don’t care about wanting. Selara was my shadow. My cousin by blood, my sister by circumstance. Where I was quiet, she was sharp. Where I folded inward, she leaned out, daring the world to strike her. People loved her ease, her laughter, the way she filled a space without effort. If the prophecy hadn’t existed, she would have been the one they watched. She looked like power. I just looked like a girl trying not to disappear. “You’re thinking too loud again,” Selara told me once, nudging my shoulder as we walked through the forest edge. “Your face does that thing.” “What thing?” “That thing where you look like you’re already grieving.” I didn’t answer. How could I explain the weight that followed me everywhere? How even the trees seemed to lean away, as if afraid of what I might become? That was before the meeting. Before the elders called my name and the village gathered like a body holding its breath. They waited until the moon was full. They always did. Torches lined the square, firelight licking at stone and skin. I stood in the center, my hands trembling no matter how tightly I clasped them together. Selara stood just behind me, close enough that I could feel her warmth, her presence grounding me. Elder Maeron spoke first. His voice was thin with age, but it carried. “The time has come,” he said. “The moon has waited long enough.” I felt it then. A shift. Not in the sky, but inside me. Like something waking up and stretching, irritated at being disturbed. They asked me to bare my arm. I hesitated. My heart slammed against my ribs, wild and desperate. I had waited my whole life for nothing to happen. I needed nothing to happen now. Slowly, I pushed my sleeve back. Gasps rippled through the crowd. Still nothing. No mark. No glow. No proof. Murmurs rose, confusion sharp and dangerous. I felt their doubt turning inward, twisting into something uglier. Faith denied always becomes anger. Elder Maeron’s eyes narrowed. “Impossible.” That was the night everything cracked. They argued among themselves, voices layered and frantic. Some said the prophecy had failed. Others said I had failed it. A few, only a few, looked at me like I was a threat that needed to be handled before it grew teeth. I didn’t wait to hear the verdict. I ran. The forest swallowed me whole, branches clawing at my skin, roots trying to trip me like they wanted me caught. I didn’t stop until my lungs burned and my legs shook beneath me. When I finally collapsed, it was near the ravine, where the world dropped away into darkness and mist. I cried there. Quietly. Ugly. Like a child who had lost something she never truly owned. I didn’t know how long I stayed before Selara found me. “You i***t,” she whispered, pulling me into her arms. “Do you know what they’re saying?” I shook my head. “They think you’re lying. Or cursed. Or both.” The words sat heavy between us. That was when Selara told me her plan. It was reckless. Dangerous. Brilliant in the way only desperation can be. She would bear the mark. A forged one, carved and burned into her skin with silver and spell. She would take my place, marry whoever the elders chose, fulfill the prophecy in appearance if not in truth. “You’ll disappear,” she said. “Go north. Past the ridge. Live.” “And you?” I asked, already knowing the answer. She smiled, fierce and sad. “I’ll survive.” I wanted to refuse. I should have. But fear is persuasive, and survival louder than conscience. We didn’t have much time. The elders were already searching. The forest was no longer neutral ground. At dawn, Selara stood before me, her arm wrapped in cloth, her jaw tight with pain. I couldn’t look at her without feeling like I was betraying something sacred. “Go,” she said. “Before I change my mind.” I stepped back, my chest aching. “I don’t know who I am without this.” “You will,” she said. “That’s the point.” I turned and ran again, but this time, I didn’t look back. Behind me, the village prepared to crown a legend. And somewhere deep inside my chest, something ancient stirred, furious at being abandoned. I didn’t know then that the moon does not forgive. And it never forgets.