CHAPTER 1 — LUCY LIANA
A long time ago, in the distant future…before the dream ends.
The city woke up the same way it always
did:
soft lights blooming behind translucent towers, sky-rails humming like sleeping gods, artificial clouds drifting on invisible schedules written by people long dead.
Lucy Liana loved mornings.
She loved the way the sun fractured through the domed skyline, bending into colors that didn't exist in nature anymore. She loved the smell of recycled rain and ionized air. She loved the feeling that, for a few minutes after waking, the universe had not yet remembered her name.
Her room was small, but it was hers.
Posters layered the walls—old music idols, abstract void-art, pixel saints from pre-collapse games.
Black curtains half-drawn. Clothes scattered in controlled chaos.
A cracked mirror leaned against the wall, reflecting a girl with short black hair, pale skin, and eyes so blue they almost looked unreal—like they had borrowed their color from somewhere else.
Lucy sat on the edge of her bed and stretched, bones popping softly.
Seventeen years old.
Still alive.
Still ordinary.
She liked ordinary.
Down the hall, her father was already awake.
She could hear the faint clink of a mug against ceramic, the low hum of the news feed murmuring about mana tariffs and Golden Moon patrol zones.
He hadn't spoken much in years—not since the woman whose name Lucy never said out loud had died bringing her into the world.
Her mother was a ghost shaped like a question mark.
Lucy brushed her teeth, pulled on her usual civilian wear—oversized jacket, dark leggings, boots with unnecessary straps. Goth e-girl, Abbie liked to call her. Lucy pretended to hate the label while secretly enjoying how it felt like armor.
School was easy.
Not because it was kind, but because Lucy learned early how to disappear inside a crowd. She wasn't top of the class, wasn't bottom either. Just present enough to pass unnoticed. In a world obsessed with bloodlines, mana capacity, and inherited miracles, being normal was a kind of rebellion.
Abbie Kadra was waiting for her outside the transit gate.
Tall, red curls tied back messily, green eyes sharp with mischief and old anger. Abbie leaned against the rail like she owned the city, boots planted wide, expression daring the universe to try her today.
"You're late," Abbie said.
Lucy checked the time. "I'm exactly on time."
Abbie snorted. "That's late in my culture."
They walked together as the transit platform slid into motion, carrying them toward the academy. Lesser House students clustered nearby—non-practicing mages, half-bloods, people whose families once mattered and now mostly didn't.
Abbie's family had been powerful once. Before the Golden Moon. Before her brother died.
Lucy never brought it up. Some wounds were better left sleeping.
The academy rose ahead of them, all clean lines and floating sigils—mana-neutral architecture designed to suppress spontaneous manifestations. Lucy liked that too. She liked places where nothing happened.
The day passed gently.
Lectures. Holo-texts. A dull ethics debate about anomaly-level sorcerers and whether restriction devices were a mercy or a crime. Lucy half-listened, doodling crowns in the margins of her notes without knowing why.
Inverted shapes. Upside-down halos.
She felt it then.
A pressure.
Not pain—more like the sensation of being remembered.
Lucy looked up.
A boy stood across the hall, watching her.
Tall. Lean. Brown hair swept back too neatly, like he was trying to look older than he was. Grey eyes, sharp and restless. A weak mustache that didn't quite belong on his face yet.
Adam Cerimona.
She knew the name. Everyone did. Old Earth noble blood. A house that had abandoned sorcery generations ago to stay on the Golden Moon's good side.
What was he doing looking at her like that?
When their eyes met, Adam flinched—then straightened, as if making a decision he'd been rehearsing for years.
He approached her after class.
"Lucy Liana," he said softly, like speaking too loud might break something.
"That's my name," she replied. "You get a prize?"
His lips twitched. Not a smile. More like fear trying to pretend it wasn't there.
"They're watching you."
Her stomach tightened. "Who?"
"The Golden Moon."
Lucy laughed before she could stop herself. It came out wrong—too sharp.
"Yeah? They're watching everyone."
"No," Adam said. "I mean you."
Abbie had stepped closer now, eyes narrowing.
"You got five seconds to explain yourself before I decide you're either insane or dangerous."
Adam glanced around. Students flowed past them, unaware, unbothered. The academy's wards hummed quietly.
"Not here," he said. "You need to leave the city. Tonight."
Lucy's pulse thundered in her ears. "Why?"
Adam leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper that felt colder than it should have.
"Because you're Moonborn."
The word hit her like a wrong note in a sacred song.
"That's not a thing," Lucy said automatically.
Adam shook his head. "It is. And they know."
Abbie laughed, sharp and humorless. "Oh, this is good. What's next? She's secretly an Vell?"
Adam didn't smile.
Lucy felt it again—that pressure. The sense of something vast pressing its face against the glass of reality, listening.
"My mother died giving birth to me," Lucy said quietly. "If I was special, someone would've noticed."
Adam's eyes softened. "They did."
Silence stretched.
Then Abbie crossed her arms. "Alright, mystery boy. Let's say—hypothetically—we believe you. What's the plan?"
Adam exhaled like he'd been holding his breath for years.
"There's a cave," he said. "Outside the city limits. Old. Wrong. You'll find a golden apple there."
Lucy frowned. "You expect me to eat a fruit some stranger told me about in a cursed cave?"
"Yes."
Abbie blinked. "Bold strategy."
Adam met Lucy's gaze, something desperate burning beneath his calm.
"That apple will wake you up," he said.
"Give you the power to survive what's coming."
"And if I don't?" Lucy asked.
Adam hesitated.
"Then the Golden Moon will put a crown on your head," he said, "and you'll never be free again."
The bell chimed. Class change. Life continuing like nothing had just shifted.
Lucy looked at Abbie. Abbie looked back, jaw tight.
Ordinary suddenly felt very far away.
Far above the city, beyond sight and wards, something ancient turned its attention fully toward Lucy Liana.
And smiled.