3. Naera
Naera
The cold bites first.
It nips at the ragged hem of my cloak, then sinks in deeper—needle-sharp, crawling up through my bare fingers, my toes, my spine. The kind of cold that makes your breath feel thin. The kind that remembers bone.
But then—relief.
I catch sight of it through the trees: a shrine.
Or what’s left of one.
It’s barely standing; just a broken archway wrapped in bramble, a scatter of moss-slick stones half-swallowed by roots. The altar’s cracked in two. The old moon-carved pillars lie like toppled teeth.
Still, it’s shelter.
Still, it’s sacred.
Or it was, once.
There are shrines like this scattered across western Velmora. I’ve passed a dozen or more in the last few days, all in various stages of decay. Moonmother shrines—left behind by old vampire clans who once worshiped Selene too.
Now, it’s just us. The Garden of Selene. Her last caretakers. Her final faithful.
I step closer, half-reverent, half-exhausted. It's been two days since I last saw a proper road. Five since I spoke aloud to another living soul. I was making my way toward the northern clans, hoping someone might offer sanctuary.
A foolish hope, maybe, but I thought…
I thought I might find her. Marienne of the Bloom. A noble who once visited The Garden in spring, trailing laughter and rose-perfume. She whispered to me once, softly, "If you ever need anything, come find me."
I don’t know if she meant it. I don’t even know where to begin.
And now, I took a wrong turn near the frostline, and the mountains—those jagged shadows rising like a crown on the horizon—have only gotten closer. I don’t know where I am.
But I know this is the only shelter I’ll find before night turns to day.
Inside the ruin, it's quiet. Windless.
Sacred, maybe. Or perhaps just forgotten.
I kneel at the altar.
The stone is cold beneath my knees, laced with tiny cracks and overgrown moss. I rest my hands on the edge of it anyway, fingers trembling, as if the old stone might remember me. Might remember anything.
“Moonmother,” I whisper, the words soft and hoarse, meant for no one but her.
My voice doesn’t echo. It vanishes into the dark like it’s afraid to stay.
I press my forehead gently to the surface of the altar. The stone smells like earth and rain and a thousand prayers no one answered.
It’s enough.
I settle there. Knees drawn to my chest, cloak pulled tight. My breath fogs in front of me in short, uneven bursts .
Outside, the forest exhales.
The night is heavy with frost and damp rot, the scent of old bark and living things. I count the sounds. Crickets. Wind. The soft rustle of animals I can’t see. And then—
A snap.
A branch cracking sharp—too sharp.
Like a bone breaking.
I flinch. But I don’t move, afraid that even a breath might give me away…
Trembling, I draw the edges of my cloak tighter and lower my head. My breath slows. My pulse doesn’t.
My voice is barely a breath.
"Selene," I whisper, the name falling from my cracked lips like an apology. "Moonmother. Watcher of the lost. Please ."
The prayer catches in my throat, thick and rusted with doubt.
I haven’t prayed like this in a long time. With each girl dragged into the sanctum—each sister I loved, glowing and trembling—the words came slower. Softer.
Until I wasn’t sure who I was praying to anymore. Or if she was listening at all.
I bow lower, forehead brushing the cold stone.
"Please," I murmur again. "Hide me."
No answer comes. No blessed warmth. No flickering light. Just wind. Just the empty, indifferent stretch of sky. And the blind stars watching through the dark like they’ve already seen too much to care.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to picture the goddess the elders painted in my mind—the silver-skinned protector, the radiant mother who lifts her chosen children into the night and keeps them safe, untouched, unbroken .
But all I see is an altar. A girl crying into silk as they unspool her future. A flickering glow burning out.
All I hear is the echo of my own breath.
Maybe Selene turned her face away from The Garden long ago. Maybe she never looked at all.
The thought tears at something soft and fraying inside me.
I drag the back of my hand across my mouth, swallowing the sob that tries to claw free. I can’t afford to cry any more.
The frost gnaws higher up my legs. My bones ache from the cold. Still, I lift my head. Force my eyes open to the blackened treetops and the fractured light of a moon that has always seemed too far away.
I will not die for a promise twisted by priests into something monstrous.
Because I’ve seen her.
The woman in my dreams—cruel-eyed and silent, blade in hand.
Selene is still watching. Still whispering.
And I think… I think she wants me to find her .
Above me, the broken ribs of the shrine cradle the sickle moon. Its light spills through the shattered roof and lands across my skin—
Faint. But unmistakable.
A soft glow.
A cursed beacon.
The Garden calls it a blessing to be born with it.
The mark of Selene, the high priest whispered, hand trembling as he cupped my cheek. Proof you were chosen.
But I know better now.
It’s not a blessing. It’s a mark. A target.
A shimmer that says: Here. Take her .
I despise that I glow.
I despise the way it pulls at my skin, the way it aches like a warning I don’t know how to answer.
None of the others who were sacrificed ever brought the Moonmother back to us. No divine fire. No resurrection. No mercy.
One by one, they vanished into ash and song and stone, and we pretended that meant something.
I’m beginning to doubt she was ever here at all…
The thought curls in my chest like smoke, bitter and blasphemous. I flinch as if I’ve been struck. My breath catches.
Don’t think like that. Selene urged you to run. She sent you the dreams. She sent you her.
Didn’t she?
I tuck my feet closer beneath me, shivering. Every nerve in my body is wired for flight, but there's nowhere left to run.
Tomorrow night, I’ll move again. I’ll find another shrine to hide in. Another night to pray that never ends.
For now... I'll rest.
I let the broken stones cradle me like bones in a forgotten grave. I let the cold hollow me out. I let the silence steal what’s left of my strength and call it peace.
Somewhere beyond the trees, the world sharpens its knives.
I pull the tattered cloak higher around me and stare up at the moon one last time.
“Don’t forget me,” I plead, voice hoarse and lost to the wind.
The moon says nothing back. But at least she stays.
The cold finally numbs enough that I can let my body loosen.
I curl tighter against the altar, my cloak barely a breath of fabric between me and the frost. The moon slants low through the ruins, softer now, blurred at the edges like a memory slipping away.
My eyes drift closed.
And I wait—
To dream.
To be found.
To see her again.
***
Sleep steals in the way smoke does… Slow. Insidious. Curling through the corners of my mind until everything solid softens and dissolves.
And then—
I see her again.
The woman.
Her long, pale braid sways behind her—like sunlight caught along a blade.
Around her, the world burns.
Shrines collapse, scorched down to their foundations.
Moon-carved statues crumble to dust.
The gardens of Selene—sacred places I once knelt in—blacken and rot beneath her boots.
It’s blasphemy. But I’m drawn to it, to her.
She walks through it all like she’s carving a new gospel with her own hands.
And somehow—somehow—I know she’s looking for something .
For someone .
The dream shifts. Warps. Tilts sideways, like the ground’s been ripped from beneath me—
And then she’s closer.
So close I can see dried blood streaked along her temple. A fine hairline scar slicing clean through one brow. The merciless set of her mouth.
My breath catches. She shouldn’t be beautiful. She shouldn't feel like prophecy cracking open inside my chest.
But she does.
Her hand tightens on the hilt of a blade. She tilts her head, studying me like I’m a puzzle she’s already decided how to break apart.
And then, for the first time, she speaks.
Her voice is low, unhurried. Almost amused.
“Selis.”
It strikes like lightning—white-hot through the marrow of the dream.
A name.
Bright. Terrible. Holy in the way fire is holy.
The dream fragments around me—stone crumbling, sky bleeding white—but the sound of it clings, fierce and sharp.
Selis.
I jolt awake.
My body lurches like it’s been thrown. My heart pounds a panicked rhythm behind my ribs.
The night presses in. The cold clings to my skin like wet cloth.
Overhead, the trees whisper. A fox cries out in the distance—sharp and lonely.
I press a shaking hand to my chest, trying to trap the name before it slips from me.
Selis …
It echoes. Lodges in the hollow of my ribs like a blade left behind. I don’t know why. I don’t know how. But I know—deeply, as deep as anything I’ve ever believed… She’s real.
The woman with the knives is real.
And she’s coming for me.