>Luna Blackwell
I didn't sleep.
Even when I closed my eyes, I wasn't alone. That voice… it echoed somewhere deep inside me, curling through my thoughts like smoke.
You're mine, Moonborn.
I sat upright, heart thudding. The scar on my wrist shimmered faintly in the dark, pulsing in time with the voice I couldn't un-hear.
I wasn't dreaming.
And I wasn't safe.
The shadows in the room felt too still. My eyes flicked to the far corner, empty. But something in me whispered: not really.
I pulled the blanket tighter around me and sat against the wall, waiting for morning.
Kai found me just after dawn, still awake. He glanced at my wrist, then at my face.
"You heard it," he said.
I didn't ask how he knew.
"Last night," I muttered. "It spoke. It..." I swallowed. "It said I was his."
Kai's jaw tensed. "The Hollow King."
I blinked. "That's a name?"
He nodded once. "You're not the first Moonborn to hear him. But the voice… it means he's found you."
I felt like I couldn't breathe.
"He comes for the marked," Kai added quietly. "And once he chooses one, he doesn't stop."
He took me deeper into the bunker, through rusted doors and narrow tunnels, until we reached a cold room lined with faded photos and scratched names on stone.
A wall of memories.
"Who are they?" I asked.
Kai ran a finger across one of the names. "The Moonborn who came before you. Some survived. Most didn't."
He stopped in front of a photo, blurry, old. A girl with short braids and fierce eyes. She looked a little like him.
"She was my sister," he said. "Ava."
I looked at him. He didn't flinch, didn't blink.
"She was marked too," he continued. "Disappeared five years ago. We think the Hollow King took her."
I didn't know what to say. So I didn't say anything. Just let the silence sit between us.
Later, Kai took me to a small room, bare floor, stone walls, nothing but a candle burning in the center.
"Channel your focus," he said, stepping back. "Try to connect with your mark."
I sat down cross-legged, exhaling slowly.
Focus.
Nothing.
I tried again, thinking of the scar, the burn, the pulse under my skin.
Still nothing.
Then... pain. White-hot. Like someone stabbed my wrist with a branding iron.
I screamed and clutched my arm. The mark glowed blindingly bright, the floor shaking beneath me.
Kai rushed in and grabbed my shoulders. "Breathe. Let go."
I gasped until the light faded, my whole body shaking.
"I can't do this," I choked out. "I'm not like them. I'm not strong."
He looked at me, not angry, not disappointed. Just real.
"You don't have to be strong yet," he said. "You just have to survive long enough to become it."
That night, I sat alone in the small room they gave me. I found an old pendant in my bag, round, silver, with a crescent moon etched in the center. I didn't remember packing it.
When I touched it, something cracked open.
A flash, like lightning in my mind.
My mother, standing in a circle of glowing stones. Moonlight falling over her face. A group around her, figures cloaked in light.
Then... screams. Darkness swallowing them. My mother turning to me.
"Find the Circle."
I dropped the pendant.
My hands trembled.
What was the Circle? A place? A group?
And why had she hidden all of this?
I was still holding the pendant when I woke again, barely an hour later. But this time, the pain wasn't in my head.
It was real.
I looked down and saw blood.
A thin line had formed beside the original scar, another symbol, this one jagged and sharp.
I stumbled to the hallway. "Kai!"
He appeared instantly, eyes wide. "You're bleeding."
I held out my wrist.
He went still.
"That symbol..." His voice dropped. "It means a Hunt has begun."
Then we both heard it.
A howl. Low. Not human.
Outside and... Close!