Sleep eluded me in the guest wing's silk-draped bed. Every luxury screamed warning—the sheets too fine, the pillows too soft, the very air perfumed with something that made thoughts drift. I slipped from beneath covers that felt more like webs and padded barefoot into marble halls.
The Moon Court at night should have been peaceful. Instead, it thrummed with subtle wrongness. My fingers traced the walls as I walked, finding what shouldn't exist—glyphs etched so faintly they were almost invisible, worked into the decorative patterns like secrets hidden in plain sight.
Containment wards. Not meant to keep threats out, but to keep something in.
Us. They were meant to keep us in.
I memorized their patterns, the way they linked and layered, creating a cage of courtesy. Maerith had prepared for our arrival long before we'd known we were coming. The realization sat cold in my stomach as I made my way back to our chambers.
Inside, Dorian crouched by Ashara's bed, watching her shadow with the intensity of a hunter tracking prey. It moved wrong again—stretching when she curled, reaching when she stilled. Independent. Aware.
"It's getting stronger," he murmured as I entered. "Whatever she's connected to, it's using her shadow like a window."
Ashara whispered in her sleep—not words but sounds that hurt to hear, consonants from languages that predated human tongues. Above us, through the too-perfect window, the moon hung impossibly close. Full, bright, pressing against the glass like an eye trying to see better.
Dorian pulled salt from his pack, began laying lines at door and windowsill. "Something's pressing in. Divine attention, but... focused. Like being studied by something that's learning our patterns."
A soft knock interrupted. We froze—visitors at this hour meant nothing good. But when Dorian cracked the door, an elderly woman in servant's grey slipped inside. Her eyes, though, were anything but servile. Sharp, urgent, carrying the weight of hidden knowledge.
"Quickly," she whispered, pressing a sealed scroll into my hands. "Before the watch changes. Before she notices I've left my post."
"Who are you?"
"Someone who remembers when this court served truth instead of teeth." She glanced at Ashara, and her expression softened. "Poor child. To carry so much attention so young. That scroll—it's old magic. From before the gods learned to look so closely. Read it. Use it. Give her the gift of being overlooked."
She vanished back into the corridor before we could question further. The scroll felt warm in my hands, wax seal bearing a symbol I'd seen in only the oldest texts—the closed eye, sign of willing blindness.
I broke the seal carefully. Inside, spidery script detailed something I'd thought lost—a rite to mask prophecy from divine sight. Not to remove it, but to muddle it, like throwing mud on a window to obscure the view.
"Can you read it?" Dorian asked.
"Yes." The words came strange but clear, as if the scroll taught language alongside content. "It requires..." I scanned the instructions. "Blood, freely given. Salt from tears of joy. And a child's true name, spoken in love rather than power."
Simple ingredients. Powerful in their simplicity.
We had her blood from scraped knees, carefully saved. Salt from tears—I remembered her laughing so hard she cried just days ago, the salt stain still on my sleeve. And her name...
"Ashara," I whispered, filling the word with everything she meant. Not prophecy, not vessel, not bridge between worlds. Just my daughter. Just herself.
I began the rite, speaking words that tasted of earth and shadow rather than moon and stars. Each syllable seemed to thicken the air, making it harder for light to penetrate. Dorian added his voice to mine, and together we wove obscurity around our daughter like a cloak.
Ashara began to glow—that familiar silver light rising from her skin. But then, for the first time in weeks, it dimmed. Faded. Settled back into her flesh like it had finally found a place to hide.
The pressure lifted.
Not completely—never completely, not with what she carried. But the weight of constant divine observation eased. The feeling of being always watched, always measured, always found wanting... it retreated to bearable levels.
"It worked," Dorian breathed.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. To see her without that supernatural glow, to feel the absence of otherworldly attention—it was like drawing a full breath after months of drowning.
Then the moon pulsed.
Just once. Subtle enough that I might have imagined it if Dorian hadn't stiffened beside me. A flare of brightness that painted our room in sharp relief before returning to normal. But in that moment, I felt it—not anger, not even frustration. Recognition.
The moon knew we'd drawn a veil. And it was... curious.
"She sees through closed eyes now," Ashara murmured, still deep in sleep. Her shadow had stilled, returning to normal behavior. But her words carried certainty that made my skin prickle. "She's dreaming us louder."
"What does that mean?" Dorian asked.
I stared up at the too-close moon, understanding cold in my bones. "The Moon Goddess. She's not just watching anymore. She's actively imagining us. Dreaming our possibilities. And dreams..." I thought of all the times Ashara's dreams had leaked into reality. "Dreams have a way of becoming real."
We'd hidden Ashara from casual divine observation. But in doing so, we'd made ourselves infinitely more interesting to a goddess who'd grown bored with simple watching.
"Pack everything," I told Dorian. "At dawn, we give Maerith our answer. Then we run."
"The wards—"
"Are meant to contain power, not absence of it." I looked at our daughter, sleeping normally for the first time in memory. "Right now, she's ordinary. Overlooked. That might be enough to slip through."
Outside, the moon continued its too-close vigil. But now I understood—it wasn't watching with eyes.
It was dreaming with intent.
And divine dreams, I was learning, were the most dangerous prophecies of all.
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