The scream tore out of Luna's chest before she could stop it.
"Let him go!"
The Watcher did not flinch. His hand remained raised, fingers curled slightly, as if he were holding invisible strings. The chains around Luna's father tightened again, glowing a deeper red as his body jerked in pain.
"You should lower your voice," the Watcher said calmly. "This chamber amplifies intent. Emotion makes the ritual… unstable."
Kael stepped in front of Luna without hesitation, his body a shield. "Touch him again and you answer to me."
The Watcher's glowing eyes flicked toward Kael with mild interest. "Ah. The Alpha. Still pretending claws matter in a room built to erase monsters."
Rhea moved to Luna's other side, blade drawn. "You talk too much."
"Violence will only accelerate the collapse," the Watcher replied. "Which may be what you want. Or what it wants."
His gaze shifted back to Luna.
"You feel it, don't you?" he continued. "The chain. The hunger. The pull between you and the thing inside you."
Luna clenched her fists, nails biting into her palms. "He's not a thing. And my father is not your sacrifice."
The Watcher smiled faintly. "Sacrifice is a matter of perspective. We prefer the term anchor."
The circle flared brighter.
Luna's father cried out, his head lifting weakly. "Luna… don't…"
Her heart shattered.
The Devourer surged, furious.
They break what they fear, it hissed. Let me end this.
"No," Luna whispered. "You don't get to decide that anymore."
She stepped forward, past Kael, past the burning heat of the circle licking at her skin.
The Watcher raised a brow. "Brave. Foolish."
Luna met his gaze. "If his blood binds the seal, then mine can replace it."
The room went silent.
Even the symbols paused, stuttering mid-rotation.
Kael's voice cracked. "Luna, no."
Rhea grabbed her arm. "You don't know what that will do."
The Watcher studied her with renewed interest. "That would tether the Devourer fully to you. No council. No Watchers. No release."
Luna swallowed hard.
A cage with no key.
The Devourer went still inside her.
You would chain yourself… for him?
"For him," Luna said. "And for everyone you've ever hurt."
The Watcher nodded slowly. "A rare choice."
He gestured, and the chains around her father loosened slightly, enough for him to breathe.
Hope flared painfully in Luna's chest.
"Step into the circle," the Watcher said. "And swear binding."
Kael moved instantly, grabbing her hand. "You won't survive it."
Luna squeezed his fingers, tears blurring her vision. "I already survived worse."
She leaned in, pressing her forehead to his. "If I don't come back—"
"You will," Kael said fiercely. "I won't accept anything else."
Luna turned and stepped into the circle.
The moment her foot crossed the boundary, agony exploded through her body. The symbols flared blinding white and black, power ripping through her veins like molten fire.
She screamed as the mark on her chest burned brighter than ever before.
The Devourer howled inside her.
You bind us forever!
"I know," Luna gasped. "That's the point."
The Watcher began to chant, his voice resonating through the chamber like thunder rolling through stone.
The chains around her father snapped open, dropping him hard to the floor.
Kael rushed to him, catching him before his head struck stone.
Luna barely noticed.
The world narrowed to pain and light and the crushing weight of power forcing its way into every part of her. Her vision swam. Her lungs burned. The dark veins beneath her skin spread like roots, creeping up her neck, across her jaw.
Her knees buckled.
She felt something inside her crack.
Not the seal.
Herself.
The chanting stopped abruptly.
The Watcher stiffened, eyes widening behind his mask.
"That's… not possible," he whispered.
The circle shuddered violently, symbols spinning backward, unraveling like thread pulled from fabric.
The Devourer went silent.
Too silent.
Luna looked down at her hands as the light around her turned a deep, consuming black—not the Devourer's darkness, but something older, something that had been sleeping beneath her skin since birth.
Her moonmark split open.
Not bleeding.
Blooming.
Silver light poured from the crack, so bright it hurt to look at, and inside that light, Luna saw something she had never seen before.
A second presence.
Not bound to her.
Part of her.
"Oh gods," Rhea breathed from the doorway. "She's not just Moonbound."
The Watcher stumbled backward, his composure finally breaking. "The bloodline didn't die. It merged."
Kael stared at Luna, his father still cradled in his arms, horror and awe warring on his face. "What does that mean?"
The silver light intensified, and Luna felt the Devourer recoil deep inside her, not in anger but in something that felt almost like… recognition.
Little Moon, it whispered, and for the first time, its voice sounded afraid. What are you?
Luna's scream cut through the chamber as the two powers inside her—moon and void, light and shadow—collided.
The impact shattered the circle.
Shattered the chains.
Shattered the walls themselves.
And when the light finally faded, Luna stood at the center of the destruction, eyes glowing pure silver, dark veins pulsing beneath skin that seemed to shimmer between solid and translucent.
Her father stared up at her from Kael's arms, tears streaming down his face.
"You were never just my daughter," he whispered. "You're what we created to stop the end of everything."
Luna's voice echoed with two tones—her own and something ancient.
"Then why," she said, "do I remember being the thing that started it?"
The floor beneath them cracked.
And from the fissure, something began to rise.
Something that had been waiting beneath the council city for a very, long time.
The Watcher's mask fell from his face, revealing features twisted with terror.
"She's opened the first gate," he gasped.
Kael held Luna's father tighter. "The first? How many are there?"
But the Watcher was already running.
And behind Luna, from the darkness of the fissure, a hand emerged—pale, clawed, and wrapped in chains that looked exactly like the ones that had bound her father.
The hand reached toward Luna.
And closed around empty air, as if testing.
As if remembering.
Then a voice rose from the depths, ancient and patient and utterly, terribly calm:
"Daughter of Moon and Void. We have been waiting. Your binding was our awakening. Your freedom is our door."
"Welcome home."
The hand pulled back into darkness.
And the fissure sealed itself as quickly as it had opened.
Leaving only silence.
And Luna, standing in the ruins, staring at her trembling hands as the Devourer whispered a single word that made her blood run cold:
Mother.