Blessed By The Moon

Chapter 52

The silver light swallowed me whole. One moment I was floating above the battlefield, Kaiden's voice breaking beneath me, Gemma's hands outstretched as though she could pull me down. The next, silence.

When I opened my eyes, the world had changed.

White stretched endlessly in every direction. No trees. No blood. No broken bodies. Just an infinite expanse, flat and gleaming like freshly fallen snow, though it gave no crunch beneath my feet. 

The air was sharp, almost metallic, so cold it made me shiver. I could smell salt, like an ocean that wasn't there, each breath laced with something ancient and heavy, as if the tide itself had found its way into my lungs.

Storm stood a few paces away, his silver eyes dim now, but his body tense, fists curled as though even here he expected a fight.

And then the voice came.

It was not a sound in the air, but in the marrow of my bones. A resonance that shook me from within, it was both beautiful and terrible.

"Echo. Storm."

We froze.

"You stand before me not in triumph, but in disgrace."

My chest tightened. I tried to speak, but no sound came. The voice, her voice, was everywhere, inside us, around us, like the very air had come alive.

"You, children, born of my light, have  insulted me, you have wielded my gift as weapon and curse. Look at the trail you have carved."

I swallowed, finally forcing words out. "I only wanted to protect them-"

"Protect?" The word cut like glass. "You left ruin in your wake, Echo. You destroyed an entire pack. You told yourself it was for love, for friends, but destruction does not discriminate. You did not protect them. You doomed others to live in fear of the very power meant to guard them."

My throat closed. Every face I had lost swam before me. Jordan. My pack. All the ones who had trusted me.

Storm spoke now "You brought us for war, to rebuild, what is different today than it was hundreds of years ago? War will always be."

And then her voice shifted. Deeper. Heavier.

"Thank you for bringing me to my next point, Storm."

He lifted his head, jaw set, bracing like a soldier before a commander.

"You waged war in my name. You raised armies not to defend, but to conquer. You slaughtered without mercy, claiming destiny as justification. And when loyalty was not enough, you betrayed the very bond of matehood, branding another as yours when the mark you carried was not even cold."

Storm flinched, actually flinched, but he held his ground. "A mistake I will always regret, a mistake I suffered for. The rest is..learning mistakes"

"Learning mistakes?" The coldness in her tone made the ground ripple under our feet. "Your audacity astonishes me, you sowed war like seed, you shattered bonds sacred since the dawn of time. You twisted love into possession and turned my light into shadow. Do not diminish this to mere mistakes."

His chest rose and fell sharply. He wanted to argue, but he couldn't.

The Moon's voice softened then, but it was not comfort, it was disappointment.

"You were a mistake, both of you. I should never have created what could destroy so easily. No mortal should have borne this power. Not you, Echo. Not you, Storm. I should have let the world turn without such blight."