Moonlit Vows Of Vengeance

Chapter 125: Facing Fears

The world around me was black. Not darkness as in the absence of light—this was something deeper. A silence so dense it pressed against my skin. I was no longer standing in the palace, nor in the ruins of the torn altar.

I was in the Cradle.

The sacred ground where the gods went to find ourselves or to lose ourselves entirely.

My bare feet touched cold stone, smooth and endless. I stood in a void with no sky, no wind, no scent—only breath and memory.

Then came the voice.

"You should never have lived."

It was mine.

I turned and saw myself, pale and bruised, hair tangled like it had been the day they dragged me through the snow outside the temple gates. My younger self stared at me with eyes too old for her face.

"You were meant to die the night they cast you out," she said. "But you didn’t. You clawed your way back. And now look what you’ve become."

I opened my mouth to speak, but another version of me stepped out of the dark.

This one was beautiful, dressed in the Moon Court silks, dripping power. Her voice was like silk wrapped around a dagger.

"You pretended to be their goddess. You let them kneel and call you divine. But you were never more than a frightened girl pretending not to be scared."

Another shadow emerged—this one broken and trembling, kneeling in a pool of red.

"You let him die."

I froze.

That voice didn’t come from a version of me.

It came from Matthias.

He stood behind the bleeding version of myself, hands limp at his sides, eyes wide and accusing. The lover I failed. The warrior who died protecting me before I ever knew how to protect myself.

"You promised you’d come back," he whispered. "But you never did."

I took a step back. My hands trembled. "This isn’t real."

"Isn’t it?" my reflection snarled. "Every death that followed you... every betrayal. They weren’t lies. They were the price. You asked to survive. You begged for power. And something ancient listened."

The ground cracked beneath my feet. Cold surged through my bones. I staggered, suddenly weightless, falling through nothing.

And then— fire.

Not burning fire, but golden light, searing through the blackness like veins in marble.

I landed in a forest. Silent. Snow-covered. The trees were dead. Still. And in front of me stood the Moon Goddess.

No! what I had thought she looked like.

But her face shifted and cracked, showing glimpses of something older beneath. A being made of night sky and blood.

"You believed I gave you power," she said, voice layered with a thousand echoes.

I couldn’t breathe.

"I don’t understand."

Her eyes burned.

"You will."

The trees began to burn around me. Faces screamed in the flames. Wolves, lovers, friends. Kieran. Lucas. Even Lyra. All distorted and dying.

"What do I have to do to save them?" I shouted.

The world twisted. A stone altar rose from the forest floor, ancient and covered in glowing sigils.

On it lay a scroll. Old. Crumbling. Written in the first language.

I reached for it, and something inside me screamed.

To regain your power, you must sacrifice what anchors you to mercy.

And just beneath it:

The one thing you still love.

The forest altar burned brighter, golden flames licking the edges of the scroll. My fingers hovered over the ancient parchment, heart pounding with the weight of the choice I knew I wasn’t ready to make.

"Athena."

The flames roared.

"ATHENA."

Suddenly, a hand grabbed my arm—real, solid—and yanked me backward.

I gasped, lungs spasming as if I had been drowning. My back hit something soft.

Silk sheets. The scent of jasmine and ash.

I was in the palace again.

Kieran was crouched over me, his hands gripping my shoulders, face white with panic.

"You stopped breathing."

My entire body convulsed. The fire was gone, but its imprint clung to me, seared into the bone. My skin felt raw. My heart wouldn’t stop racing.

"I—I saw them. I saw all of them." My voice cracked. "Me. Matthias. The altar. The scroll. And something was there, Kieran."

Kieran?

The Cradle did not shift like the waking world. It bled between states—reality and memory, nightmare and truth—until everything blurred into one endless reckoning.

It was all an illusion again.

The ground beneath me was silver stone, etched with ancient sigils that shimmered faintly beneath each step I took. They weren’t just symbols. They pulsed—like veins—and with each heartbeat, they whispered. I could feel the weight of forgotten gods watching, judging, remembering.

My feet were bare. Every step burned—not from heat, but from memory.

Grief. Betrayal. Shame.

They rose with each etching I passed, as if the floor itself knew every sin I had committed. Every decision I hadn’t been brave enough to make. Every moment I had stayed silent, smiling, while my soul bled.

Then came another voice.

Low. Familiar. Vile. noveldrama

"No matter how far you run, it still rots inside you."

I froze. My heart stuttered in my chest. The voice wasn’t just familiar—it was mine.

I turned.

And there she was.

Me.

But not me.

A twisted shadow in blood-soaked ceremonial robes, her skin blistered and scorched, half her face melted like candle wax. Her eyes were hollow, nothing but black pits filled with contempt. Her mouth curled into a smile that tasted like ash and regret.

"You think power was your curse?" she asked, voice like shattered glass. "It wasn’t."

My throat tightened, but I forced the question out. "Then what was?"

She took a step forward. The air around her shimmered like a heat haze. "Hope."

I blinked.

"You hoped they’d love you," she said, mockingly. "You hoped he would come back. You hoped Kieran could save you. But all they did was take. Take. Take."

My lips parted. "I chose to stay. I chose to fight."

"No," she hissed, eyes flashing. "You chose to suffer. Because you thought pain was noble. You thought enduring made you strong. But all it made you was easy to control. Predictable. Weak."

I stepped back. Just one pace. My body wanted to flee, but I stood my ground.

"I’m not here to prove anything to you."

The floor beneath us cracked.

Images surged from the stone, rising like mist. Flickering, pulsing, twisting.

Cassius’s body crumpled in a pool of blood. Jesse, screaming my name as he bled into the snow. Lucas walking away with pain in his eyes and guilt on his tongue. My people howling beneath a silent moon. The Moonstone shattering in my hand like fragile glass.

"You let all of it happen," she whispered behind me. "And now here you are, still begging for redemption."

"I’m not begging," I said, my voice a rasp, my hands trembling. "I’m earning it."

And then I walked forward.

She screamed, the sound inhuman, and lunged toward me.

We collided. A rush of pain tore through my chest as her claws raked across my memories. My mind split open, drowning in visions of what I had lost—what I had become.

Every moment I had swallowed pain to be their symbol. Every lie I told myself just to keep breathing.

And still, I didn’t fall.

Still, I fought.

Then—

"Athena!"

A voice. His voice.

Real.

A hand pierced the storm and grabbed my wrist—strong, warm, alive.

Lucas.

He yanked me out of the dark, and I collapsed against his chest, gasping. His heart thundered under my cheek. Blood dripped down the side of his face, his eyes wild with fury and fear.

"You weren’t supposed to go ahead without me," he said hoarsely.

Behind him, the shadow version of me shattered like glass, her scream echoing into nothing. Light rushed into the room, and for the first time, the silver floor looked... still.

A new door formed in the stone ahead. Amber light poured from it.

Lucas turned toward it. "We’re not done yet."

I nodded, my legs shaking, but I followed him.

The next chamber was circular, vast, timeless. A room built like a giant moon dial, the walls inscribed with celestial markings. Everything felt suspended—sound, breath, even thought.

But this was no illusion.

This was memory.

The moment we stepped in, I knew.

The light softened. A soft cry echoed in the distance.

My birth.

I saw the moonlight glinting off the cradle. My mother’s fingers, trembling as they reached for me. And the circle of robed priests moving like shadows, chanting words I now recognized as binding spells.

"No," Lucas whispered beside me. "What is this?"

"My origin," I said. "The moment it all began."

A glow appeared in the chamber—hovering over the moon dial. A scroll, bathed in golden fire.

I knew what it was.

The Final Seal.

The same scroll Kieran had found in the archives, the one we hadn’t been able to open.

Now, it opened on its own.

One line. One truth.

To reclaim the divine, you must destroy what anchors your mortal heart.

Lucas read it aloud, his voice quiet but full of storm.

My mouth went dry. "You know what that means."

His expression didn’t change. "It could mean me. Kieran. Your crown. Your heart. Anything that still ties you to this world."

I felt something splinter inside me.

Terror.

"What if I destroy the wrong thing?"