CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The First Prophecy
SERAPHINE
Selene Temple looked less like a ruin than a dead thing refusing burial.
White towers leaned against one another above the forest. Roots split the outer stairs. Moon carvings covered every wall, their faces softened by rain.
The fresh footprints ended at the main doors.
Lucian drew his sword.
I drew two knives.
“Romantic holiday,” I whispered.
“We should travel more.”
Inside, the temple was silent.
Dust lay thick across the floor except where someone had crossed toward the inner sanctum.
Blue myrrh scented the air.
“Malrec?” I asked.
“Or his people.”
We followed the trail through a collapsed library and down a spiral stair.
At the bottom stood a circular chamber open to the sky.
Moonlight fell onto a stone slab in the center.
A body lay beside it.
I rushed forward.
An old woman in gray temple robes breathed shallowly, blood soaking her side.
Her eyes opened when I touched her.
“Moonmarked,” she whispered.
“Who did this?”
“Men... white eyes.”
Moonrot guards.
Lucian searched the chamber exits.
I pressed cloth to the wound.
The woman caught my wrist.
“No time.”
“You have time.”
“Child.” Her gaze moved to the glowing crescent at my collar. “I have been waiting fifty-eight years to tell someone the truth. Do not waste my last minutes arguing.”
I stopped.
Lucian knelt beside us.
“I am Sister Aven,” she said. “Last keeper of Selene.”
“You knew the Edict was altered,” Lucian said.
“I knew after I became keeper. The priests in Nocthar ordered this temple abandoned. They could not destroy the first stone without breaking the binding, so they buried it.”
“Where?”
She looked at the slab.
Lucian and I moved it together.
Beneath was a black tablet covered in silver runes.
The first Edict.
My hands shook.
Lucian read aloud.
“When crowned blood and moon-marked blood join by willing bond, release shall come upon throne, realm, and sacred order. The blood-crown shall break. The chained wolf shall wake. Only death freely given by the crowned to the marked, and life freely returned by the marked to the crowned, shall end the first binding.”
The words echoed in the chamber.
I stared at him.
“Death?”
Sister Aven coughed.
“Not murder,” she whispered. “Consent. Trust. The first kings bound violence into the crown stone. They gave every Veyr ruler power to command wolf blood. But power accumulated. Each reign fed it.”
“The chained wolf,” Lucian said.
“The Blood Warden. Not a creature at first. A reservoir. Rage, dominance, fear. Centuries gave it shape.”
I thought of the ferals.
“Malrec has been drawing from it.”
“Yes. Testing vessels. Seeking a body strong enough to hold the Warden when the royal bond breaks.”
“Me.”
Sister Aven squeezed my wrist.
“You can release it safely only through the true rite. If Malrec forces the break, the Warden will enter you and consume what remains.”
Lucian’s face became unreadable.
“What does ‘death freely given’ mean?”
The old keeper looked at him.
“The crowned one must die by the marked one’s hand at the heart of the binding.”
My stomach turned.
“No.”
Lucian remained still.
“And life returned?” he asked.
“The bond must choose whether to call him back. There is no guarantee.”
“No,” I said again.
Sister Aven’s eyes softened. “That is why the priests changed the law. Few kings wished to surrender power. Fewer wished to trust another with death.”
Lucian looked at the tablet.
I grabbed his coat.
“No.”
“Sera.”
“We find another way.”
“We will.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m considering.”
“That is how you lie politely.”
Sister Aven smiled faintly.
“Good,” she whispered. “The old rite requires love stubborn enough to argue with prophecy.”
Her grip weakened.
I returned pressure to her wound.
“Stay with me.”
“Take the stone rubbing. The tablet cannot leave.”
Lucian found parchment and charcoal in an old keeper’s chest. He copied every rune carefully.
Sister Aven watched.
When he finished, she said, “King.”
He leaned closer.
“Your blood is not your father’s choices.”
Something moved across his face.
“Nor is a crown proof of worth,” she added.
His mouth almost curved. “I suspected.”
She died before moonset.
We buried her beneath the white trees behind the temple.
No priestly chant.
No crown.
Only her name carved into stone.
As we finished, horns sounded in the forest.
Not temple horns.
Royal.
Three riders appeared between the trees.
The first wore Nyra’s colors.
He nearly fell from the saddle.
“Your Majesty.”
“What happened?” Lucian asked.
The rider bent over, gasping.
“Severin returned to the palace with temple forces. Malrec declared you dead at Selene. The council crowned Severin before sunset.”
Lucian went still.
“And Nyra?”
“Escaped with Commander Thorne. The Raven holds the south district. Fighting has begun.”
The rider swallowed.
“Malrec has ordered every Moonmarked citizen in the capital arrested.”
I looked at the first prophecy rubbing in Lucian’s hand.
We had found the truth.
Now we had to reach a city already burning because of the lie.