Chapter 10-The Fracture Deepens- part 2

"Hold on!" I shout, driving my heels into Midnight's sides.

She leaps.

For an instant, we are weightless - suspended above a world collapsing in fire. The bridge disintegrates beneath us, a shattering tide of light and glass, but we're already beyond it, soaring through the smoke and the ash and the ruin.

Then gravity returns.

Midnight's hooves strike solid ground with a jolt that rattles through my bones. We skid across wet earth, stumbling into the forest beyond the city's edge. Branches whip past; shattered light flickers through the canopy like dying stars.

Behind us, Aeltharis burns.

The roar of its collapse rolls over the hills, distant thunder beneath a bleeding sky. Towers of flame pierce the clouds, their glow reflecting in every raindrop that begins to fall.

Rain.

It comes suddenly, violently - a downpour that hisses as it meets the fire, drowning the screams, the crackling, the sound of the world coming undone. The air tastes of smoke and salt and sorrow.

I slide from the saddle, landing hard, breath shuddering. My hands tremble uncontrollably. The Moonstone at my throat still glows - fractured, fevered - its light dimmed but alive. Even through the cold rain, I can feel it pulsing beneath my skin, matching the rhythm of something dark and patient inside me.

Danny dismounts beside me, soaked through, hair plastered to his face. He bends, bracing his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. "You okay?"

I stare down at my palms. The shadows are still there, faint but visible - threads of ink swirling just beneath the surface. I swallow hard. "I don't know," I whisper. My voice trembles. "I think... I think he found me."

Danny looks up, rain streaming down his face. His eyes search mine - frightened, yes, but steady. "Who?"

"The Warlock," I say. My throat tightens around the name. "Or maybe..." My gaze drifts to the glowing cracks in the Moonstone. "Maybe I found him."

For a long moment, the only sound is the rain. Heavy. Relentless. As if the heavens themselves are weeping for what's been lost.

Danny exhales, straightening. "Either way," he says softly, "we made it out."

I turn, looking back toward the burning horizon. Through the veil of rain, Aeltharis still glows - a dying sun swallowed by its own light.

"For now," I murmur.

Midnight stamps her hooves, restless. The forest is dark ahead of us, shadows shifting between the trees. I can feel the darkness beneath my skin stir in answer - curious, awake.

The rain falls harder. The world feels smaller.

And somewhere beyond the storm, the Warlock is smiling.

---

We camp under the trees that night - no fire, no light. The rain hasn't stopped. Every time I close my eyes, I see Aeltharis collapsing, the Warlock's gaze piercing through the smoke.

When I finally speak, it's barely a whisper.

"He wanted me to lose control."

Danny looks up from where he's sitting, drenched and exhausted. "Then you didn't give him what he wanted. You're still here."

I stare down at the Moonstone. Its glow is faint, unsteady. "For how long?"

The forest offers no answer - only the slow drip of rain and the echo of firelight in the distance.

But deep inside, I know this much:
The Warlock has marked me.
The stones are calling to one another.And the next fracture won't just break me - it might break the world.

---

The rain has not ceased since Aeltharis burned.

It falls heavy and ceaseless, each drop a measured grief from the sky - as though the heavens themselves mourn the ruin below. The forest drinks it in silence, roots dark with sorrow, leaves trembling beneath the weight of it. The air is thick with the scent of ash and iron, with the echo of a city's final cry.

By dawn, stillness feels unbearable.

I rise before the light can touch the horizon. The remnants of camp lie quiet behind me, shrouded in mist - no sound but the rain, no warmth but memory. My boots sink into the sodden earth as I make my way to what remains of the stables.

Midnight waits there.

She greets me with a low, restless snort, ears flicking at the thunder rolling in the distance. Her coat glistens dark as obsidian, streaked with silver where the rain clings to her mane. The air around her hums faintly - a living current of unease, magic, and mourning. Even the forest feels uncertain, as if the fall of the Sunstone has rippled through its roots.

"I know, girl," I whisper, stroking her neck. My voice sounds smaller than I expect. "I feel it too."

The motions come without thought - the rituals of habit and survival. I tighten the saddle straps, fasten the girth, test the weight. My armor follows, piece by piece, the metal cool against my skin, each clasp clicking shut with the precision of an old, unwanted memory.

The Moonstone rests against my collarbone, cold and unsteady. Its fractured light flickers weakly, the rhythm of a faltering heartbeat - dim, but still alive.

When I turn, my gaze catches on Danny.

He lies beneath the fading shimmer of my last warding spell, pale as moonlight, breath shallow and uneven. The sight of him steals the strength from my chest. He looks impossibly fragile, too human for the weight of the war we've stumbled into.

"I'll come back," I whisper. The promise feels hollow, like glass about to crack. I don't know if I mean it for him - or for myself.

Midnight shifts beneath me as I mount, muscles coiled with tension. I take one final breath - smoke, rain, earth - and press my heels to her sides.

We move.

The forest opens ahead, a tunnel of shadow and fog. The world narrows to the rhythm of hooves on wet stone, the soft hiss of rain across armor. With every stride, the ache in my chest hardens into something sharp and clear. The time for waiting is over.

I ride not for hope, but for reckoning.

Toward the Warlock's stronghold.
Toward the dark that calls my name.Toward the end of everything.

Behind us, the rain swallows all trace of the camp - of light, of warmth, of hesitation. The forest closes in, and the world dissolves into mist.

And then, as the storm thickens around us, the night takes me whole.

- -

The forest parts as we gallop north.

Midnight's hooves strike the sodden ground in a relentless rhythm, scattering mud and mist. The trees grow sparse, their trunks fading into gray silhouettes as the land begins to rise. Ahead, the mountains loom - black and jagged, their peaks like broken teeth biting into the stormlit horizon. Somewhere beyond them lies his palace. The Dark Warlock's stronghold. The heart of the storm that has haunted my blood since birth.

The wind lashes my face, cold and sharp, and memories spill through the cracks in my thoughts like shards of glass.

The first memory I have is of the Witch Domain's capital - my village.

I was an orphan for as long as I can remember. No name. No family. Only the necklace my mother left behind when she died - the Moonstone, small and bright and impossibly warm in my hand. The only thing in my life that felt alive.

They said I was cursed. That anyone who cared for me met the same end - quick, tragic, inevitable. The other children wouldn't come near me. Even the elders crossed the street when I passed.

So I learned to live where no one would look - rooftops, alleys, the dark between trees. I spoke to the moon when the nights grew too quiet. I told her I wasn't afraid. It was a lie.

Then came him.

A boy - wild hair, boots too small, eyes too old for his years. The others mocked him because he looked different. I still remember that day: the sound of their laughter, cruel and careless, the sting of stones in the dirt.

For once, someone else was being hunted.

I stepped forward, small but unshaken. "Hey!" I shouted. "Found you - now it's your turn to run!"

And somehow, they did.

He looked at me then, wide-eyed, surprised. "Why did they run from you like that?"

"Because they think I'm cursed," I said. "Everyone who cares for me dies."

He frowned for a heartbeat, then smiled - a crooked, impossible smile that changed everything. "Then I guess I'll just have to be the first who doesn't."

That was Jarrin Mainriver.

The boy who gave me a name.

That night, he pointed to the moon - full, pale, endless - and said, "How about Luna? You look like someone who'll always be there, like her."

And I cried. Not from pain, but from the strange, fragile joy of being seen.

The years after blurred together. Hunger. Winter. Laughter in spite of it. We learned to steal, to survive, to run faster than the things that wanted us dead. He was my anchor - the proof that I could exist without bringing ruin.

Until that night.

The sky was black and breathless - no stars, no moon, only the smell of smoke.

Jarrin's hand shook me awake. "Luna! We have to go - now!"

I remember the panic in his voice, the glow of fire beyond the walls. "What's happening?"

"The Warlock," he gasped. "He's here."

I didn't know the name then, but the fear in his eyes told me enough.

We ran - through the alleys, through the fire, through the ruin of the only home we had ever known. Behind us, the village screamed. The flames reached higher than the trees, painting the sky in shades of dying gold.

That was the night I swore never to run again.

And yet, here I am - still running.

-

The world snaps back into focus.

The Warlock's palace rises before me - vast and terrible, carved from the bones of the storm. Towers of obsidian claw at the clouds, their edges glowing with veins of molten light that pulse like a living thing. The air itself vibrates - thick with power, with the weight of all that has been stolen from the world.

His soldiers are waiting at the gates. Rows upon rows of them. Shadows wrapped in armor, eyes burning with borrowed flame.

Good.

I dismount before Midnight can stop. My boots hit the mud with a sound that splits the silence. The sword materializes in my hand, though I don't remember calling it - as if it was always there, waiting. The Moonstone's fractured light seeps into the blade, the glow unsteady, trembling, alive.

The first soldier lunges.

I meet him mid-strike.

Steel and magic collide - a blinding crack, a burst of light. The impact shatters the air like thunder, scattering droplets of molten rain. He falls, but more take his place.

Then more.

Dozens. Hundreds.

They come at me in waves, and I meet them all.

My body moves before my mind does - an instinct honed by loss and wrath. The rhythm consumes me: strike, pivot, parry, kill. Every motion feeds the next. The Moonstone pulses with my heartbeat, its glow shifting from silver to violet, from light to shadow, the color of chaos itself.

The ground turns slick beneath my boots. The storm howls above, but I no longer feel the cold. All I know is the pulse - that relentless rhythm of magic and hate - until there is nothing left to fight but the silence that follows.

When the last of them falls, the rain returns. Slow at first, then steady, washing blood into the mud. My breath comes ragged. My arms ache. The sword feels too heavy to hold.

But it isn't over.

A flicker at the gate catches my eye - gold and silver through the rain, a shimmer of something too fragile to exist in this place.

And then the memory hits.

A boy's laughter, soft and shy.
A name spoken beneath a full moon.
"Then I'll just have to be the first who doesn't."

The words cut through me, sharper than any blade. The light in the distance shifts - becomes shape, form, a figure half-familiar, half-impossible.

And my heart stops.

"I never remembered when we stopped running," a voice murmurs in the back of my mind, quiet as rain, "but what happened next changed everything."

Jarrin and I had been found by Queen Aerith's guards.

Moonhaven took us in.

The city of silver towers and endless twilight - where moonlight pooled like water in the streets and every breath seemed to hum with quiet power. We were children of ruin then, ragged and half-wild, too used to hunger to trust the scent of bread, too used to fear to sleep without watching the door.

And yet, she saw something in us.

Queen Aerith - the woman who would one day call me daughter - looked into the faces of two orphans and said, "The one who carries the most kindness shall inherit my throne."

I wanted it to be Jarrin.

He was my courage when I had none, the heartbeat I followed through every dark place. If kindness was the measure of worth, no one had more of it than him.

But the queen chose me.

And in that moment, for the first time, I hated the moonlight that had always protected me.

It felt colder that day - too bright, too cruel. A reminder that fate never chose fairly.

That single choice became the fault line beneath everything that followed: my crown, my title, my duty, my distance.

Flahera, Jack, Ravensha... names like stars that burned for a time and then went dark. Friends made in flashes of fire and loss.

And later - much later - Danny.

The outsider. The echo from another world. The one who reminded me what it meant to feel something human again, even when I no longer believed I was entirely one of them.

"I never remembered when we stopped running," a voice murmurs in the back of my mind, soft as falling ash, "but what happened next changed everything."

I had been found by Queen Aerith's guards.

Moonhaven took us in.

The city of silver towers and quiet miracles - where moonlight touched every surface, and even the shadows seemed gentle. We were only children then, half-wild and hollow from hunger, two strays pulled from the ruins of the Witch Domain after the fires took everything.

Queen Aerith - the woman who would become my mother - saw something in us. Something neither of us understood.

He was my courage when I had none. The one who found light even in the ruins. If kindness was the measure of worth, he had it in abundance.

But the queen chose me.

And in that moment, I hated the moonlight that had always protected me.

It had chosen me again - when all I wanted was for it to choose him.

That choice shaped everything that came after: my title, my crown, my duty. The light became my burden, and his absence, my shadow.

But before Moonhaven, before the crown - there was the fire.

The night that tore us apart.

I can still feel the heat of it, smell the smoke in my hair, hear the way the world screamed as it burned. Jarrin's hand was locked around mine as we ran through the forest, our lungs raw, our feet bleeding.

"Luna!" he shouted over the roar. "Don't stop!"

We didn't - not until the flames found us.

A wall of fire erupted between us, a living inferno that split the world in two.

He reached for me through the smoke, his fingers just out of reach. "Run!" he cried. "Go!"

"I'm not leaving you!" I tried to push through, but the fire surged higher, forcing me back. The heat burned my skin, the smoke clawed at my throat.

"Jarrin!" I screamed his name until my voice broke.

But the fire swallowed him whole.

When dawn came, there was nothing left - only ash, and silence, and the Moonstone cooling in my palm.

They said no one could have survived the blaze.

I believed them. I had to.

Because believing otherwise would have broken me.

That was the night I learned what loss truly meant. The night I swore I'd never run again.

- -

Moonhaven came after - the rescue, the crown, the years spent pretending I was whole. Flahera, Jack, Ravensha... companions who filled the silence with laughter and loyalty. And later, Danny - the outsider who somehow saw through the armor, who reminded me what it meant to feel something other than duty.

But some wounds don't heal.

Even now, when the night is quiet and the world holds its breath, I still hear him.

That boy with the wild hair and the too-old eyes, calling my name through the flames.

And I wonder - just for a moment - if the moonlight chose me to save the world...or to punish me for surviving it.

The present crashes back.

Smoke. Fire. A voice.

"You came alone, little moon."

The Dark Warlock's words slither through the burning air, soft as silk and twice as poisonous. His form materializes from the smoke - tall, cloaked in shadow, eyes burning with a light that isn't light at all.

"So much power," he says, his tone almost admiring. "Wasted on mercy."

I lift my sword, though my hands tremble from exhaustion. "You'll find mercy is the only thing that separates me from you."

His smile curves - slow, cruel.

"Not for long."

He gestures toward the scorched earth, and my heart shatters.

Danny lies there - still, pale, my shield flickering out around him like dying starlight.

"No..."

I drop to my knees beside him, the sword clattering from my hand. His chest rises shallowly, blood staining his shirt in dark, spreading blooms. I press my trembling fingers against his throat, desperate for the pulse I can barely feel.

"Hey," I whisper, voice cracking. "Don't you dare. Not now. Not like this."

Nothing.

The world narrows - to smoke, to the scent of ash, to the sound of my own heartbeat splintering. The battlefield burns around us, a mirror of every nightmare I've ever run from.

Tears sting my eyes. "You fool," I whisper, choking on the words. "I told you not to follow me."

His breath falters. Mine breaks.

I press my palm against his chest and summon what strength I have left. "Dliehs renul."

Light bursts from beneath my hand - a fragile sphere of moonlight enveloping us both. It hums softly, steady, protective. But it won't last. Nothing ever does.

I brush the blood from his cheek with my thumb. "I'll be right back," I whisper. "Just-stay. Please, Danny. Stay."

As I rise, the sword lifts with me - drawn by something deeper than will, heavier than fate. Its blade burns with the fractured fire of the Moonstone, shards of silver and violet dancing in the stormlight. The air bends around its glow, heat and shadow twining like serpents in the dark. The world itself seems to tremble - as if it, too, knows what's coming.

Each step toward the Warlock feels like wading through the weight of creation - the ground softens, resisting me, the air thickening with unseen hands. The fracture inside me widens with every breath, the darkness pressing against my ribs like a heartbeat that isn't mine.

The final barrier. The last thread of restraint.

This is the edge of it - the line between who I am and what I could become.

If I can't stop him now - if I fall here - it won't just be the end of a war.

It will be the end of me.

The next battle won't be for kingdoms or crowns or stones.

It will be for my soul.