The air felt heavier after they left the greenhouse—like the sky knew something Aria didn't.
She walked in silence, Kael at her side, the weight of the woman's words ringing in her mind.
> "The moon chose you… but its will is not pure."
What did that even mean?
"Kael," she said finally, "was that woman… like me?"
He hesitated. "No. She was different. She tried to cheat the pact—rewrite it on her own terms. She survived, but only half of her came back."
Aria frowned. "And me? Do I get to survive whole?"
"That depends on what you become," he said softly.
---
That night, Aria stood by her window again. The moon hung low, almost too close, like a glowing eye just above the treetops.
She couldn't stop thinking about the phrase the woman had used. "The Moonmarked."
She whispered it aloud. "Moonmarked…"
As soon as the word left her lips, the mark on her wrist ignited.
Pain flashed through her arm. She stumbled back, gasping.
Her mirror rippled.
Not cracked—not broken—but fluid, as though the glass had turned to water. And in it, she saw herself… but not quite. The girl in the mirror had glowing eyes, her hair rising with invisible wind, her hands wreathed in silvery-blue fire.
And around her neck—
The same pendant.
The girl in the mirror smiled.
But it wasn't a comforting smile. It was a smile full of knowledge.
Of power.
Of prophecy.
Aria blinked—and the image was gone. Just her own reflection now, wide-eyed and shaking.
---
She couldn't sleep. Again.
Instead, she walked to the small attic above her room, the place where her parents had once kept old books, memories, and silence.
She pulled out a dusty wooden box marked with a faded sigil—one that matched the pattern on her wrist.
Inside: letters.
Written in her mother's handwriting.
> "To my daughter, when the mark begins to burn..."
Aria's hands trembled.
> "You were not born to be ordinary. You were born under the second moon—the one they erased from the sky. They feared its power. But it lives in you now, and it will call to you when the veil weakens. Listen to it... but do not trust it blindly."
> "And if Kael finds you—do not let your heart decide before your soul understands him."
Aria's heart dropped.
Even her mother hadn't trusted Kael completely.
She folded the letter, unsure whether to cry or scream.
Below, the front porch creaked.
She crept to the window.
Kael stood under the moonlight again, eyes glowing, face unreadable.
As though he could sense she had read something he hadn't wanted her to see.
And for the first time, Aria wondered:
Was Kael guarding her from the world?
Or was he guarding the world from her?
---