CHOSEN

Long before the skies bled crimson and the mountains whispered their secrets to the stars, the Ak'tari believed the Red Moon was a gift-an omen of change, a pulse of divine will echoing through the bones of their world.

It was said that when the Red Moon rose, it peeled back the veil between fate and flesh. On this night, the gods awakened the bond between souls-nooshari. Not chosen by blood, nor by logic, but by something deeper. Something ancient. A thread spun in the dark before memory ever existed.

For generations, the ritual had remained sacred. Unquestioned. Revered.

But none had expected the humans.

When the outsiders fell from the sky in fire and metal, the Ak'tari had watched with wary eyes, their hearts guarded by stories of destruction told by wind and earth. Yet, over time, suspicion softened. Curiosity grew. And on the eve of the Red Moon, something unthinkable happened.

The gods called out again-but not just to the Ak'tari.

They called to her.

Mia never believed in fate. She had only ever believed in survival. In keeping her head down. In doing what needed to be done.

But beneath a sky painted in blood and stars, among a people not her own, Mia felt something ancient stir within her. Something waiting. Something wild.

And when she met his eyes-those burning, otherworldly eyes-everything changed.

This is the story of how Mia found her nooshari.
Of how love, primal and fierce, bloomed under an alien moon.
And how her heart, once lost, became something sacred.