Chapter 9 THE AWAKENING

My body wasn’t mine anymore.

Silver fire pulsed beneath my skin, racing through every vein like liquid starlight. My heart thudded once, twice—each beat sending ripples through the air, bending the mist, making the ground tremble. The forest moved with me, branches groaning, leaves turning their faces toward me as though I were the moon itself.

I tried to breathe, but the air was thick, alive. It pressed against my lungs like something sentient, tasting of rain and ash. My chest ached with something vast—something ancient—pressing to get out.

Astra whimpered inside me.

"Selene, stop—you’re burning."

But I couldn’t.

The energy clawed at my insides, begging for release. It didn’t feel like power—it felt like hunger, a storm trapped beneath my ribs. My fingers dug into the damp earth, desperate for grounding, but wherever I touched, light followed. Roots split open beneath my nails, glowing white before bursting into embers. The sharp scent of charred bark filled the air, mixed with the metallic tang of my own fear.

Then the pain hit.

White-hot agony sliced through me, sharp enough to steal sound from my throat. My back arched, my vision blurred, my heartbeat thundered like war drums in my ears. The mark between my collarbones seared, glowing so bright it hurt to look at.

And then I screamed.

It wasn’t just a human sound. And it wasn’t just a wolf’s.

It was both.

The scream rolled through the woods like a storm, bending trees, scattering flocks of birds into the night. The wind howled back, echoing my cry until the entire forest seemed to mourn with me. I could feel it—the pain, the anger, the fire burning through centuries of silence.

Light exploded from my body.

My gown shredded into ribbons of smoke, each thread burning away in the air. My hair lifted around me, silver strands catching the light until they looked like living flame. When I looked down, my hands shimmered with the color of the moon, every vein etched with luminous fire.

My reflection danced in a nearby pool—eyes like mirrors, skin traced with runes of light. They pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat, a language I couldn’t read but felt deep in my bones.

“What… am I?” I whispered, though the voice that came out wasn’t mine—it was layered, dual, echoing, as if both Selene and the fire inside her had spoken at once.

The ground beneath me shuddered. A web of cracks spread outward in every direction, glowing from within. Light poured through the seams of the earth like molten silver, illuminating the trees from below.

I rose—slowly, weightless. My feet left the ground. My body floated above the earth, caught between gravity and divinity.

For a single heartbeat of silence, I felt everything.

The grief.

The betrayal.

The loss.

All of it surged through me at once—too much for my human heart to contain.

“Why?” I gasped, tears blurring my vision though they evaporated before falling. “Why me?”

I didn’t know if I was asking the Goddess, Kael, or the universe that seemed to watch me suffer.

The wind roared back—violent, alive, furious.

It circled me like a beast, tearing leaves from branches, shaking the forest to its roots. My power pulsed with it, answering, amplifying. The trees bent as though they recognized what I was becoming. The moon’s light broke through the mist in shards, each one striking my skin like lightning.

I screamed again, this time not in pain, but in rage—raw, unrestrained, the kind of sound that didn’t ask for permission.

And the forest answered.

Every branch bowed toward me. Every shadow leaned closer. The mist rippled in waves, drawn to my breath. The world listened.

Power thrummed through the ground, through the air, through the stars themselves. For the first time, I realized that the Goddess hadn’t left me behind in that vision—she had left a piece of herself inside me.

The Moonfire.

Her essence.

Her curse.

When the light finally began to fade, I collapsed. My knees hit the ground hard, dirt grinding into my palms as I gasped for breath. The air felt cold, metallic, like blood and starlight mingled. My body trembled with aftershocks, each heartbeat still sparking faint silver veins beneath my skin.

The forest was silent again.

Too silent.

No wind. No crickets. Not even the rustle of leaves.

Just me—and the faint hiss of cooling earth where the light had burned through.

Then—

A sound tore through the stillness.

A howl.

Low. Deep. Not Kael’s pack.

It vibrated through the air, ancient and wild, crawling down my spine like a whisper from something that didn’t belong in this world. The ground quivered beneath me.

I froze.

Astra's ears perked inside my mind, her instincts sharper than mine.

That’s not SilverMist…

My heart stumbled. The energy that had once burned wild now coiled in warning.

I turned toward the sound, scanning the mist. The light of the Moonfire still flickered faintly in the fog, reflecting off the trees. Between them—shadows moved. Low to the ground. Silent. Watching.

Another howl joined the first. Then another.

The air changed.

It wasn’t just one creature. It was many. Dozens. Maybe more. Their presence thickened the mist, their scents foreign, ancient, and wrong.

Astra growled inside me, ready to fight, but something in their energy made even her hesitate.

“Show yourselves,” I whispered, though my voice shook.

The forest obeyed.

The mist parted—slowly, deliberately—revealing eyes. Dozens of them. Some gold, some red, some glowing the same eerie silver that danced beneath my skin.

A chill ran through me.

They weren’t wolves. Not entirely. Their shapes were half-shadow, half-flesh, like something torn between life and spirit.

I stumbled backward. The mark on my chest flared in warning, its heat pulsing harder with each second. The creatures didn’t move closer—but they didn’t retreat either. They stood at the edge of the clearing, heads bowed slightly, as if… waiting.