Before the world learned to fear the dark, it feared her.
The night Astraea Vale was born, the shadows didn't behave like shadows. They crawled up walls, clung to ceilings, and whispered in languages older than the Wraiths themselves.
The midwife tried to scream—but no sound left her throat. The shadows had stolen it.
Astraea's first breath extinguished every torch in the birthing chamber. Her second made the floor crack.
The High Priest staggered backward, hands trembling, as the newborn's emerald eyes opened—bright, soft, innocent. Too innocent for the destruction her power promised.
"She carries the Bride's Mark," he whispered hoarsely. "The one who merges realms. The one who ends us all."
The other elders began chanting protection spells, choking on their own fear. But the shadows ignored them. They bent toward the baby as though greeting a long-awaited queen.
Astraea didn't cry. She only blinked—once.
And the shadows around her bowed.
Far beyond the Night Realm, across the cursed border where moonlight bled into darkness, another cry split the sky.
A newborn wolf pup—white-furred, blue-eyed—howled into the night as though answering her.
The howl rolled through the forests of Lunaris, shaking treetops and rattling bones. The wolves believed it was a good omen.
It wasn't.
The Wraiths believed the girl would destroy the world. The Wolves believed the boy would save it.
That night, destiny tied two lives together with a thread made not of love, nor hatred—but of inevitable ruin.
One day, shadow would meet moonlight. One day, Astraea Vale and Kael Thorne would find each other.
And when they did— no kingdom would survive it.