Chapter 8 The First Luna
Before Aria could answer, the tunnel walls groaned, a low, grinding sound erupted, as if the earth itself was breathing. Their lights flared again, illuminating symbols that hadn’t been visible before. And in the center of the symbols, was a symbol carved deeper than the rest, and has a mark identical to the one burned into Aria’s wrist.
Lucian’s jaw tightened. “That symbol… I’ve seen it before.”
Aria looked up at him. “Where?”
“In the ruins of my pack’s temple. It was carved over the graves of those who tried to break the Moon’s law.” His expression hardened. “Their punishment wasn’t death, it was transformation.”
The words hung between them like a shadow.
Before Aria could respond, the light around the carvings shifted, the silver turned to crimson. The air thickened with the scent of blood and smoke. From the far end of the tunnel came a slow, rhythmic, wet sound. Footsteps starts echoing in time with their heartbeats.
Lucian drew his blade out, the steel glinting faintly. “We’re not alone.”
The light flickered again. A figure emerged from the darkness—tall, and cloaked, its eyes were glowing the same molten red as the symbols on the walls.
Aria’s voice shook. “Who are you?”
The figure stopped a few paces away. When it spoke, the voice was both human and beast. It sound layered, distorted, and familiar.
> “You should not have come here… sister.”
The torch in Lucian’s hand went out.
Darkness swallowed everything.
The air was thick with the scent of wet stone and ash. Aria could barely see Lucian beside her, only the faint shimmer of his eyes in the dark, the gold catching what little light remained.
But ahead of them, the stranger glowed faintly red, as though veins of fire ran beneath her skin.
“Sister…” the figure repeated, voice rough, resonant, filled with both fury and longing.
Aria’s pulse thundered in her ears. “Who are you?”
The woman stepped closer, her hood falling back to reveal pale skin streaked with scars that pulsed faintly with crimson light. Her hair, that is white as moonlight, fell around her shoulders in wild waves. But it was her eyes that made Aria freeze, it was silver like her own, rimmed with red flame.
“I am what remains when the Moon turns her face away,” the stranger said softly. “I am what she made before you.”
Lucian moved in front of Aria instinctively. “She’s lying.”
The woman’s lips curved. “You feel it, don’t you? The pull of my blood in hers. You know I'm not lying.”
Aria’s breath caught as the bond surged painfully between her and Lucian, reacting to the stranger’s presence as if something ancient had been awakened.
“Why call me sister?” Aria whispered.
“Because you carry her mark,” the woman said. “The mark I bore first. I was Luna before the first pack ever swore loyalty to the Moon. I was her blade.”
Aria stared at her, disbelief warring with recognition. “That’s impossible. You died.”
“I was unmade,” the woman corrected. “Not dead. I was banished below the world when I sought vengeance upon my Alpha—my mate. The same sin you now chase.”
Her words sank like knives.
Aria’s voice trembled. “Kael betrayed me. He cheated on me, made me a rogue and banished me. He made me pay for a sin he committed. You think I shouldn’t want revenge?”
The woman’s gaze softened, almost pitying. “I wanted the same thing once. And the Moon punished me by binding me to the rage I carried. Every generation, she gives that rage a new vessel, someone who will inherit the curse I began.”
Aria took a step back, shaking her head. “No. That’s not...”
The ground trembled violently. Cracks spread along the tunnel walls, bleeding light like open wounds. Lucian grabbed Aria’s arm, pulling her close as stones fell from above.
“What’s happening?” he shouted.
The stranger’s eyes burned brighter. “The Goddess knows I’ve spoken to you. Her silence does not forgive.”
Aria’s vision blurred. The air shimmered around her, heat and frost colliding. She could still hear the woman’s voice inside her mind.
> 'Break the bond, child, and you will break the Moon itself.'
Lucian gritted his teeth, shielding her from the falling debris. “We have to move!”
The stranger lifted her hand. The ground split open between them, a chasm of light and shadow. “Run if you must,” she said, her voice now distant, fractured, like many voices speaking through one. “But remember this; vengeance feeds the bond. The more you hate, the stronger he will become.”
“Who?” Aria asked.
The woman smiled sadly. “The one you think you can destroy.”
And then she dissolved into ash, her form scattering like red dust into the rising wind.
The tunnel walls began to collapse. Lucian seized Aria’s hand, pulling her through the twisting corridors, both of them half-blind as dust choked the air. Every pulse of the bond seared through them, pain and power tangled together.
At last, they burst out into cold air, onto a cliff overlooking the valley. Rain lashed their faces, thunder shaking the sky. Behind them, the tunnels imploded in a roar of stone and fire, sealing whatever had spoken to them below ground.
Aria dropped to her knees, gasping. The mark on her wrist blazed, blood-red against her skin.
Lucian knelt beside her. “What did she mean, ‘the stronger he will become’?”
Before Aria could answer, her head snapped up. A wave of pain slammed into her chest so violently she cried out.
“Aria!” Lucian caught her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
Her eyes glowed silver. Her voice came out hollow and shaking. “He’s here.”
The storm broke open above them, lightning flashing white across the mountains.
Far below, across the valley, a single figure stood on the opposite ridge, drenched in rain and moonlight. Even through the storm, she could feel him.
Kael.
