Chapter 8: The Moon Bloodline, Awakened!
1284 Words
It was the night of the full moon.
On the banks of Moon Lake, on the outskirts of Silver Moon City, silver moonlight draped the still waters like gossamer. The surrounding reed beds rustled softly in the night wind.
Eira sat cross-legged on a flat bluestone boulder.
She wore a thin white robe, her hands resting palm-up on her knees. In her left hand lay the silver medallion she’d unearthed from the wooden chest beneath her bed.
Three days had passed since the Coming-of-Age Ceremony. She knew full well that after she’d torn up the fated bond in front of the entire continent, and exposed Lila’s true colors in the marketplace, the elders of the Silver Moon Clan would never let her be.
She had to break the seals within her body before the clan made its move.
Eira closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath, and began to guide the faint moonlight energy radiating from the medallion. It flowed along the meridians in her arm, gathering slowly, inch by inch, toward her heart.
The seat of her wolf core.
The second the energy made contact, Eira’s brows snapped together in a sharp frown.
Her wolf core was like a stagnant pool, locked away behind impenetrable walls. Wrapped around its outer edge was an unyielding black barrier, and the moment her moonlight energy touched it, it was thrown back without mercy.
“Again.”
Eira gritted her teeth, forcing the power within the medallion to surge forth.
This time, there was no tentative probe. She wove all the moonlight energy into a single, sharp spike, and drove it with brutal force into the black barrier.
BOOM!
A terrifying wave of backlash tore up her meridians, racing back toward her core.
Eira’s body convulsed violently, and a spray of blood burst from her lips, splattering across the bluestone before her.
Agony.
This was no ordinary backlash from cultivation. This searing pain, as her meridians were torn apart one by one, jolted the most primal terror from the depths of her soul. It was the exact same all-consuming pain she’d felt in the Icebound Forest, when Kaelen had crushed her wrist and shattered her wolf core.
Cold sweat soaked through her robe in an instant. She crumpled onto the boulder, her fingers clawing into the cracks in the stone until her nails split, blood welling from the broken skin.
The lake seemed to sense her agony, its surface churning violently. What had been still waters now roiled with waves, crashing against the rocky shore.
The cold wind howled across the lake, cutting through her thin robe.
She convulsed with pain, her vision blurring at the edges. Was she to fail again, brought low by this damned seal, even after a second chance? Was she doomed to wear the label of a waste, to be trampled underfoot by them all over again?
“Over my dead body!”
A feral, guttural snarl ripped from Eira’s throat.
She did not yield to the pain. Instead, she clamped her bloodied left hand around the silver medallion, pressing it hard against the center of her chest, right over her heart.
“BREAK!”
The very second the backlash threatened to drag her into unconsciousness.
The clouds in the night sky roiled violently apart. The full moon, once soft and bright, blazed with ten times its original radiance.
And then, silver rain began to fall from the heavens.
This was no ordinary rain. Every drop hummed with dense, concentrated moonlight energy, and where it touched her skin, there was no cold—only a warm, gentle heat.
A celestial phenomenon seen once in a century: the Moonfall Rain.
The first drop landed on the back of Eira’s hand, wrapped tight around the medallion. The ancient silver emblem burst to life, blazing with a light brighter than the full moon itself.
That light coalesced into a solid silver beam, piercing straight through Eira’s chest, and slamming into the black barrier wrapped around her wolf core.
CRACK!
A sharp, shattering sound rang out from deep within Eira’s body.
The black seal that had caged her for ten long years shattered like fragile glass beneath the pure primal power of the moon, spiderwebbing with cracks before exploding into nothingness.
Pure, untainted moonlight purification power flooded her parched wolf core like a broken dam, wild and unstoppable.
Her once-dead wolf core began to thunder with life. With every beat, it pumped immense power into every corner of her body. The meridians torn apart by the backlash healed and widened at a visible rate, nourished by the moonlight energy.
Eira’s body lifted off the boulder, hovering weightless in the air.
Her silver-grey hair billowed wildly in the moonlight, every strand glowing with a soft silver halo.
A vast, suffocating wave of life energy exploded outward from her, rippling across the lake and shore. The reeds and grass along the bank, already withering with the coming winter, burst back to vibrant life beneath the touch of her purification power.
Vibrant green spread like wildfire, and between the blades of grass bloomed tiny silver flowers, each glowing with faint, otherworldly light.
Eira slowly opened her eyes.
Her ice-blue irises swirled with mesmerizing silver light. At the very center of her forehead, a faint crescent moon mark bloomed into being, flickering for a heartbeat before fading back into her skin.
The first tier of the Moon Bloodline, fully awakened.
She curled her fingers into fists. The power thrumming within her was purer than that of any high-ranking Silver Moon warrior she’d ever seen in her past life. She could feel the breath of every plant within miles, could sense the faint hum of energy drifting through the air.
This was the true legacy of the Moon Goddess. This was the life she was always meant to live.
Eira landed softly on the bluestone boulder. She looked down at the silver medallion in her hand, now calm and still once more, and a cold, sharp smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
“Lila. Tobias. Are you ready for the reckoning you’ve earned?”
...
At the very same moment.
In the heart of Silver Moon City, deep within the Moon Temple—the towering spire that represented the highest divine authority of the Silver Moon Kingdom.
In a sealed underground chamber, not a single torch burned. The only light came from an enormous, ancient astrolabe at the very center of the room.
At the base of the astrolabe, an old woman with snow-white hair sat cross-legged.
She had been in seclusion for ten long years. Her face was lined with deep, knife-cut wrinkles, but her back remained straight and unbowed. She wore the golden-embroidered robes of the High Priestess.
The very second Eira shattered her seal.
The astrolabe at the center of the chamber let out a deafening, resonant hum. The once-still star wheels spun wildly, every pointer locking in unison toward the direction of Moon Lake, outside the city walls.
A pure wave of moonlight energy, thrumming with the breath of the divine, pierced through the temple’s thick stone walls and flooded the chamber.
High Priestess Marth’s eyes snapped open.
Her once-clouded pale silver irises blazed with brilliant light. She stared fixatedly at the moon core crystal at the heart of the astrolabe, watching as it erupted with a brightness never seen before.
She lifted a trembling, withered hand, brushing it gently against the scorching edge of the astrolabe. Two thick, cloudy tears tracked down her wrinkled cheeks.
“Ten years…”
High Priestess Marth’s voice echoed through the empty chamber, thick with unbridled, reverent joy.
“She has returned at last… the Goddess’s heir.”
- Writer
