MOONLIGHT BOUND

CHAPTER 4: THE LIE THEY CALLED MERCY

Lunara's POV

That night, the house felt too small for my body, and Rion’s name burned on my shoulder like the mark itself. I lay awake long after everyone else had gone quiet, staring at the ceiling, listening to soft breaths and distant creaks. Every whisper of the wind through the shutters felt like it carried his name back to me, pressing it into my chest. Rion. Strong. Respected. Feared. The kind of man people didn’t say no to, even when saying yes meant losing yourself.

I pressed my palm against my shoulder, over the mark, trying to calm the heat there. It didn’t help. The burning felt deeper now, restless, as if it knew something I didn’t. They weren’t just talking anymore, they were deciding.

By morning, the house was alive with movement. Women whispered to each other, carrying fabrics, jewellery, and oils. My mother barely spoke, her eyes red and tired, while my father avoided me entirely. No one said the word marriage aloud, but it hung heavy in the air, thick and suffocating. I wasn’t stupid. I knew what came next. Kael had refused. Rion wouldn’t. And no one would stop it.

The thought sank into my chest slowly, like something cold settling into mud. I tried to imagine standing beside Rion, my life stretched out under his shadow, but the image made my throat tighten until I could barely breathe. That was when it hit me clearly: if I stayed, I would disappear anyway. Just more quietly.

The idea of leaving didn’t come all at once. It crept in slowly, in the quiet nights when the house seemed too full of secrets. At first, it scared me. Running meant danger. Hunger, cold, the forest. It meant becoming something whispered about for the wrong reasons. But staying meant being owned.

I weighed the two in my mind until the answer stopped shifting. I would leave. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know when. Only that once the elders finished their preparations, it would be too late. The mark pulsed again, warm and insistent. For the first time, it didn’t feel like a curse. It felt like a warning.

Selara noticed before anyone else did. She always did. My cousin had a way of observing without seeming to. She had grown up in the same house, heard the same stories, learned the same rules. But where I shrank, she watched. Where I stayed silent, she listened harder.

One evening, as the sun dipped low and the shadows stretched across the floor, she came into my room without knocking.

“You’re thinking about leaving,” she said simply.

I froze, my hands stilling in my lap. “What?”

She leaned against the door, arms crossed. “Don’t lie. You touch your shoulder more when you’re scared. And you haven’t stopped all day.”

I looked away. No point pretending. “They won’t let me,” I whispered.

“No,” she agreed. “They won’t.”

Silence stretched between us. I expected her to scold me, to warn me, to remind me of duty and family. Instead, she sighed.

“If you run,” she said slowly, “they’ll hunt you.”

I nodded, chest tightening. “I know.”

“But not if they think you’re still here.”

I looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”

Her gaze flicked to my shoulder, just once. Enough. The room felt colder.

“That’s impossible,” I whispered.

“Not impossible,” she said quietly. “Just dangerous.”

That’s how the plan began. Not with courage or confidence, but with fear and necessity.

The moonmark was the key. It made me valuable. Without it, the elders had nothing to protect, nothing to trade. If they believed the mark was still in the house, they wouldn’t panic. They wouldn’t tear the forest apart looking for me. Selara understood that.

“They don’t know how it works,” she said. “Only what it looks like.”

I stared at her. “You’re talking about copying it.”

“Yes.”

“It could kill you.”

She shrugged, jaw tight, tension in every line. “Staying might kill me too. Just slower.”

That was the first time I saw clearly: Selara wasn’t doing this just for me. She had her own reasons, her own hunger for more than the life handed to her.

“I can carry it,” she continued. “At least long enough. Long enough for you to disappear.”

I should have said no. I should have refused. But every time I imagined Rion’s shadow falling over me, my words died in my throat. I nodded.

We worked in secret. Slowly. Carefully. Like thieves in our own home. Selara gathered powders, oils, heated metals, tools whispered about in old stories, never used openly. The forging had to be done at night, under moonlight. The Moon Goddess wouldn’t accept a lie otherwise, she said. I didn’t know if that was true. I didn’t care.

When the time came, I almost stopped her. She bared her shoulder, jaw set, eyes fixed on the wall. The first touch burned into her skin. The sound she made wasn’t a scream, but it wasn’t silence either. Something raw, dragged from deep inside her. Her skin resisted, flaring angrily before dimming.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered through clenched teeth. “If you stop now, it’ll be worse.”

I held her hand until my fingers went numb. When it was done, the crescent gleamed faintly. Not alive the way mine was, but close enough. Too close.

We stared in silence.

“They’ll believe it,” she said finally. I wasn’t sure whether to feel relief or sickness.

The rest happened quickly. Elders came sooner than expected, decisions made behind closed doors. Women began preparing the room, whispering urgent instructions. My mother looked at me like she was trying to memorize my face. I said nothing. If I had, she might have begged me to stay, and I couldn’t let her.

That night, when they dressed Selara in my place, the house didn’t question it. They saw the mark, the robes, the symbols, what they wanted to see. A Moon-touched girl, ready to be handed over. They called it mercy. They said it was necessary. They said promises had to be kept.

No one asked where I was. Not really.

By the time the drums began outside, Selara was standing where I should have been, calm, poised, playing her part perfectly. And I was moving toward the edge of the house, heart hammering so loud I was sure someone would hear it.

The moment my feet touched the grass, I didn’t think. I ran, not for bravery, not for a plan, but because if I stopped, I would lose my nerve. The forest swallowed me, branches tearing at my dress, roots catching my feet. I didn’t slow until my lungs burned and my legs shook beneath me.

Only then did I collapse against a tree, gasping, shaking, alone. Behind me, the lie had settled into place. Ahead of me, the forest waited. I had no food. No shelter. No idea how to survive the night.

But for the first time, the choice was mine.

And that would have to be enough.

Somewhere deep in the forest, a howl sliced the silence. Another followed. And I knew, without understanding why yet, that my escape had not gone unnoticed.

The night was far from over.