43. Naera
Naera
The world splits open at the seams.
Not like a wound—like a blossom, unfurling. Blooming in blood and ash.
I’m floating.The altar is gone beneath me. The weight. The silk. The shame. Gone. I don’t remember standing. I don’t remember wanting to rise.
My body doesn’t hurt. It hums. Like I’ve swallowed the moon and she’s finally awake inside me. Her pulse thrums through my bones. Her light bleeds from under my skin.
And I see everything.
The fire roaring like memory.
The smoke curling like fingers around sacred stone.
The acolytes scrambling like insects, crying out my name.
Not Naera.
Selene.
They think I’m her. But I’m not.
Or—
Am I?
I’m burning , but I’m not fire.
I’m floating , but I’m not air.
I’m the in-between—holy and hollow. A vessel cracked open, leaking light .
And then—
Through it all—
The fire, the smoke, the unraveling of everything I thought I knew—I hear her .
“Naera.”
My name.
Not Selene’s.
Mine.
The voice cuts through the divine haze, low and rough and furious and real .
“Naera.”
My heart stumbles, because only she says it like that.
“Selis.”
The name splits through the light inside me like a faultline, and the power throbs louder in my chest. Each beat a bell. Each pulse a promise. The glow rises—spikes. No longer soft. No longer sacred. It turns sharp. Dangerous.
Like teeth made of light.
And then I feel it.
Not fear. Not my own will. Her.
Selene.
Through every nerve, every bone, every buried instinct. A wildfire that started inside my ribs and now wants the world.
She doesn't want sacrifice. She wants scorching .
Not death.
Ruin.
Not surrender.
Purge.
Not silence.
Thunder.
Not an offering.
Judgment .
The truth slams through me like a second awakening: She never wanted my blood on the altar. She wants theirs. The priests. The ones who smiled while they bled girls like me for glory. Who twisted devotion into a blade and called it sacred.
Don’t let them run.
Don’t let them rebuild.
End it.
I could. Gods—I still can . Let the fire take them. Let their screams echo like hymns. Let this temple crumble into a tomb with no one left to sanctify it… no one left to lie.
But then—her voice. Real. Flesh. Mortal.
“Naera.”
And suddenly, I’m torn.
Smoke coils around me like silk. The altar crumbles beneath the weight of my name, and I’m no longer floating—I’m falling . But not down. Not into death. Not into nothingness.
I fall into clarity . And through it, I see her. Selis, tearing through the fire like a storm, like a blade cut loosed from its sheath. Blood streaks her temple. Her jaw is set. Her eyes locked on me.
Not pleading.
Calling.
Arms outstretched, not in surrender— in defiance . The smoke parts for her. The shadows move around her. And in that moment, I understand: this was the prophecy. Not my death. Not my surrender.
Her.
Her, with ash in her hair and fury in her teeth.
Her, storming the altar.
Her, who came back.
Selene’s presence curls tighter around my spine. Not cruel. Not cold. Clear.
This is what you were born for.
Not to be devoured.
To devour.
Not to bleed for them—
To end them.
The Garden doesn’t need more blood. It needs fire. It needs me. It needs us. And I see it now—so clearly it hurts .
Selis wasn’t my distraction. She was the match.
My firestarter. My blade. My monster on a leash of moonlight.
We were never meant to run.
We were meant to burn this place down.
The altar beneath me splits open with a sound like thunder cracking the sky. Selis stumbles, but she doesn’t fall. She grits her teeth, plants her boots, and finds her footing like she always does. And Selis is still there, still reaching for me.
I lift my hand toward hers, light bursting from my fingertips. Not gentle. Not meek. Ravenous . It leaps between us like recognition, like fate waking from a long, dark dream.
“Selis,” I breathe. “This is it.”
A beat of power between us—a second heartbeat.
“We’re the end.”