The Injured Luna

Lightning and Fire

Chapter 36 – Lightning and Fire

Tahlia didn’t bow when she entered the sacred den.

She didn’t need to.

The firelight danced over her storm-colored skin, illuminating the faint scars that wrapped around her arms in spirals—marks not of injury, but initiation. Magic, weather, time... these had been her teachers.

“She’s not like any child I’ve met,” Candace whispered as they watched her circle Elara.

“She’s not,” Kael agreed, his gaze thoughtful. “She’s older than she seems. Or maybe she just remembers more.”

Richard stepped forward. “Where are you from, Tahlia?”

Tahlia’s eyes didn’t blink as she answered, “I was raised by the Sky-Seers in the cliffs of the north. They taught me wind and dreamcraft. But I left when the stars screamed your baby’s name into the storm. I followed the scream here.”

Elara cooed, reaching her small fingers toward Tahlia again.

The moment their hands touched, a gust of wind swept through the room. Candles flickered out. The fire surged blue. And Kael gasped, staggering slightly.

“She’s bonded already,” he said. “Elara... chose her.”

Anna pulled Elara closer to her chest, lips pressed to her daughter’s golden curls. “Then it begins.”

—

Later That Day – The First Training

In the old sacred grove beyond the packhouse, Anna and Richard watched as the three children formed their first Circle.

Kael stood at one side of the triangle. Tahlia took the other. Elara, still cradled in Anna’s arms, floated into the center—her little body aglow with silver-white runes no one had carved, but which pulsed from within.

“Breathe together,” Anna instructed. “As one.”

The air shifted.

Kael’s hands lit with gold-flame, his breath rhythmic and steady.

Tahlia raised her arms, calling wind that bent the trees backward in reverence.

Elara’s eyes fluttered open—piercing and ancient. A silver light spilled from her body in soft waves.

Then, slowly, runes began to shimmer around Kael and Tahlia too—matching Elara’s, glowing in synchronicity.

“They’re linking,” Lacy whispered in awe. “Already.”

The earth beneath their feet cracked gently open, revealing threads of light that pulsed like veins. All around them, the world seemed to hum.

Anna’s chest tightened with a mix of joy and dread.

“Three,” she murmured. “But the prophecy says twelve.”

Richard took her hand. “We’ll find them. Or they’ll find us.”

—

That Night – Visions

Tahlia slept in a nest of moss and crystal Anna had made for her. But her dreams did not let her rest.

She saw a boy in a desert who could bend shadows into blades.

A girl deep beneath the sea who breathed starlight.

And a child locked in a tower whose voice could shatter mountains.

Elara appeared in the dream—glowing, hovering.

Twelve.

Twelve pieces of the moon.

Tahlia awoke with a gasp, sweat dampening her tunic.

The Circle had begun. But the shadows were rising, too.

They would need more than light to survive what came next.