Chapter Eight
The moment her fingers closed around the black blade, the chamber reacted.
A hum vibrated through the air, sharp and wild, like a scream swallowed by stone. The mirrors surrounding the chamber shattered inward — fragments catching slivers of her reflection as if trying to stitch her soul back together.
Selene's knees buckled.
Her breath caught fire in her lungs.
She wasn't here anymore.
—
Flashback
Snow.
Crimson snow.
The battlefield stretched endlessly before her. Wolves clashed in a storm of blood and steel. The sky was torn with lightning. Her hands—smaller, gloved in ceremonial lace—clutched the same obsidian blade she held now.
He stood before her.
Lucien.
Younger. Sharper. Dressed in royal black edged with silver and red. His eyes—those impossible silver irises—held hers as they knew her completely. Loved her. Feared her.
"You don't have to do this," he'd said. Voice soft. Tormented.
"I swore an oath," she answered, her voice not her own. "To your brother."
Ronan.
Lucien's hands had bled that day, from where he'd refused to strike her. "He doesn't deserve your soul. He never did."
"But he has my vow."
"And I have your heart."
She hadn't answered.
Lucien stepped closer through the snow and ash, the battlefield growing quieter around them—as if time itself bent in reverence to the gravity between them.
"I have your heart," he repeated, his voice a whisper in the storm. "Even if you never say it."
Her grip on the blade trembled.
"I was promised to your brother," she said. Her voice—this other version of her—was colder than she expected. Controlled. Bound by duty.
Lucien's jaw tightened. "You were promised by bloodlines built on lies. Curses passed down like crowns."
His fingers brushed her cheek. Gentle, despite everything. "But I remember the girl who once touched the stars for me. I remember the way your soul called to mine when we were children—before they separated us with magic and fear."
Selene's heart ached at the certainty in his gaze.
"I remember," Lucien whispered. "And so will you."
Then—
A blast of silver energy exploded between them. A roaring wave of heat and wind.
A mark—jagged and ancient—burned bright across her collarbone in the vision. The Mark of the Devoured Moon. The forbidden bond.
Her past self fell to her knees.
Lucien roared as shadow magic ripped him back into darkness.
And Selene—this Selene—was torn from the vision, gasping as reality shattered around her once again.
—
Back in the Heartchamber
Selene collapsed onto the floor, coughing, the obsidian blade still clutched in her hand. The mark—that same moonbrand—now pulsed faintly on her skin, glowing through her collar.
Ronan was already beside her. "Selene—what did you see?"
She couldn't speak.
Her voice was locked behind the weight of a truth too big to carry.
Caelan stared at the mark, his voice unusually hushed. "That's not just a hybrid seal… That's his."
Ronan's eyes darkened. "Lucien."
Selene finally looked up. "He was… we were—" She stopped herself. She couldn't say the words.
Not yet.
Far away, deep beneath the earth in his obsidian sanctum, Lucien felt the shift.
He straightened slowly, his lips curving into a feral smile.
"She remembers."
The revenant at his side trembled. "What now, my king?"
Lucien walked to the ceremonial basin filled with starlight and blood. On its surface, Selene's face shimmered—eyes wide, soul-shaking, reborn.
He brushed his finger across the image. "Now… she begins to question everything."
"Will she come willingly?"
"She won't have a choice." Lucien turned, letting his cloak of shadows trail behind him like smoke. "Once the Heartchamber is awakened, the curse reactivates."
The revenant blinked. "The blood price—"
"Will be demanded," Lucien said softly. "And Ronan will pay it."
He raised his hand. From the wall, a single red rose bloomed from black stone.
Lucien plucked it, thorns slicing into his palm.
"To awaken the bond," he murmured, "something precious must bleed."
—
Back in the tunnels…
Selene stood shakily, Ronan at her side. Her voice, when she spoke, was laced with the burden of new knowledge.
"We need to leave. Now."
"Why?" Caelan asked, sword already half-drawn.
Selene's eyes met Ronan's. "Because the curse didn't die with Lucien."
She looked down at the obsidian blade.
"It just woke up in me."
The air shifted.
Not with magic. Not with prophecy.
But with doom.
The moment the blade fully pulsed to life in her hand, the walls began to tremble. The shattered mirrorstone fractured further, echoing with countless ghosted versions of herself — watching, still whispering things she couldn't hear.
"We have to move," Ronan growled, catching her elbow. "Now."
Caelan swore under his breath. "This place is going to cave in."
"No," Selene said quietly. "It's not collapsing."
They both turned to her.
She looked up. Her eyes had changed.
Once golden with flecks of violet, now they glowed lunar silver, threaded with streaks of shadow. Like her blood had started remembering something ancient… and unnatural.
"It's awakening."
Behind her, the pedestal that once held the blades split in two—revealing a circular stone platform beneath it. Runes carved in a language Selene had never studied now made perfect sense to her.
"'When the bound one remembers, the war shall rise again,'" she translated aloud.
Caelan stepped forward warily. "That's not exactly the bedtime story I was hoping for."
Ronan's hand tightened around his blade. "You don't have to carry this, Selene. You can still—"
"No," she said firmly, her voice stronger than before. "I'm done running from what I am."
"I'm not talking about running." He moved closer, gently touching the side of her neck. His fingers brushed against the burning mark beneath her collarbone. "You don't even know what this is doing to you yet. I've seen what happens when cursed bloodlines reclaim their power. They burn out."
She stared into his eyes. "Then let me burn."
Ronan's jaw clenched. "You think I'm going to let you fall into whatever trap Lucien is laying for you?"
Selene stepped back. The blade in her hand pulsed in time with her heartbeat. "I think you don't get to choose that for me."
They stared at each other, the tension between them heavier than ever.
Caelan cleared his throat. "Sorry to interrupt this emotionally charged moment, but if we don't leave, that cursed stairwell is about to swallow us whole."
From behind them, a low rumble echoed through the chamber.
A massive archway cracked open in the wall behind the pedestal, revealing a spiraling staircase made of silver bone and roots.
Selene turned to it instinctively, blade in hand. "That's our way out."
Caelan glanced at Ronan. "You sure she's still Selene?"
"I'm not," Ronan muttered, but followed anyway.
As they began the climb, Selene's mind spun with the words from the vision, the fragments of the past life she couldn't piece together yet.
But one thing was certain:
Lucien wasn't just a prince of shadow.
He was her mate—once.
And he wanted her back.
—
In the sanctum beneath the dead mountain, Lucien dropped the bloodstained rose onto the altar.
"Begin the ritual."
The revenants surrounding the stone chamber chanted in a language long forgotten, their voices echoing with death and desire.
Lucien closed his eyes as the basin flared with silver fire.
He saw her again. Selene. Standing in the Heartchamber, holding his blade, burning with power and memory.
"You remember me now," he whispered. "That's all I needed."
He turned, throwing back his cloak. "Ready the gates. Send word to the Hollow Claw pack. If the Lunar Fang wants a war…"
His silver eyes glowed with cold fury.
"Then we'll give them one they'll never forget."
—
Back in the tunnel…
Selene reached the top of the staircase and stepped into the light.
The mountain above them had shifted. Trees bent away from her. The wind howled as if warning the land something ancient had returned.
She looked down at her hands.
The blade shimmered darkly in her palm.
A piece of her whispered:
You've done this before.
And last time, you chose wrong.
Ronan emerged beside her. His presence was grounding… but his expression was troubled. "You're changing."
"Good," Selene murmured. "Because the girl I was before…"
She stared down the valley, where storm clouds gathered unnaturally fast.
"…she wouldn't survive what's coming."