Lyra's POV
Pain.
That's all I know when I wake up. My whole body feels like it's being ripped apart from the inside.
I'm in a cell—cold stone walls, iron bars, no windows. The floor beneath me glows with symbols that pulse with magic meant to keep my powers locked down.
But something's wrong.
The suppression spell isn't working.
I can feel power building inside me like water behind a dam that's about to break. It's not my gentle healing light anymore. This is something massive, terrifying, ancient. It wants out, and I don't know how to stop it.
"Help," I whisper, but my voice won't work right. "Someone help me."
Through the bond, I reach for Kael desperately. But there's a wall between us—the prison's magic blocking our connection. I can barely feel him, like he's on the other side of a thick fog.
The power inside me surges again, and I scream.
My hands explode with light—not silver this time, but silver mixed with shadows. The two colors twist around each other like fighting snakes. The symbols on the floor start cracking.
"No, no, no," I gasp. "I don't know how to control this. Please stop!"
But it won't stop. It's getting stronger.
A guard appears at my cell bars. "What's happening in there? Your power shouldn't be—"
The moment he touches the bars, my power lashes out like a whip. The guard flies backward and slams into the opposite wall. He doesn't get up.
"I'm sorry!" I sob. "I didn't mean to! I can't control it!"
More guards come running. They see their fallen friend and draw their weapons.
"The half-breed is attacking!" one shouts. "Get the High Priestess! Tell her the corruption is spreading faster than predicted!"
Corruption? What are they talking about?
I look down at my hands and my heart stops.
The silver light is still there, but now black veins crawl up my arms like poison. Where the light and shadow meet, my skin glows with power that makes the air around me shimmer.
This is what Calista warned about. This is what they're all afraid of.
I'm becoming something else. Something dangerous.
"Kael," I whisper through the bond, pushing as hard as I can against the barrier between us. "Kael, please. I'm scared."
For a moment, nothing happens.
Then the bond EXPLODES.
Kael's presence slams into my mind so powerfully that the prison walls crack. I feel his rage, his terror, his absolute refusal to let me face this alone.
And I feel something else—he's coming. Fast.
"Stand back from the prisoner!" The guards form a circle around my cell, their weapons glowing with magic. "By order of High Priestess Calista, if the corruption spreads beyond containment, we're authorized to execute immediately!"
"No!" I press myself against the back wall of the cell. "Please, I'm not trying to hurt anyone! I just want this to stop!"
But the power keeps building. My vision starts to blur. I see double—no, triple. The world splits into different versions of itself, all layered on top of each other.
In one version, I see myself covered in shadow, destroying everything.
In another, I'm pure light, healing the world.
In a third, I'm both at once—balance between destruction and creation.
"What's happening to me?" I cry.
"You're awakening," a new voice says.
I blink, and suddenly there's an old woman standing INSIDE my cell. She wasn't there a second ago—she just appeared like smoke.
The guards gasp. "The Oracle! How did you get past the wards?"
The old woman ignores them. She looks at me with eyes that hold entire universes. "Hello, child of the Moon. Your mother would be proud of you."
"You knew my mother?"
"I knew what she was trying to protect you from." The Oracle kneels beside me, seemingly unbothered by the power pouring off my body. "Twenty-five years ago, Selene came to me. She asked me to see your future. Do you know what I saw?"
I shake my head, unable to speak.
"I saw two paths. In one, you become the greatest healer the realms have ever known—a bridge between divine and mortal, bringing peace to centuries of war. In the other..." The Oracle's expression grows sad. "In the other, you become worse than the Shadow King ever was. A destroyer of worlds."
My blood turns to ice. "Which path am I on?"
"That's the thing about futures, child. They're not set until you choose them." The Oracle touches my forehead gently. "Your power is awakening early because you're in danger. Your soul is trying to protect you. But you need to understand what you're becoming."
The moment her finger touches my skin, visions flood my mind.
I see my mother—the Moon Goddess Selene—young and beautiful, falling in love with a mortal king. I see her fighting the Celestial Court when they try to stop the relationship. I see her pregnant, glowing with joy and terror.
Then I see the night I was born.
Calista is there, pretending to help. But when my mother is weak from childbirth, Calista drives a blade into her heart.
"No!" I scream, living my mother's death through her eyes. "Mother!"
"She died protecting you," the Oracle says softly. "She used the last of her power to hide you, to suppress your divine nature so the Court couldn't find you. But that suppression was always meant to break on your twenty-fifth birthday. She wanted you to have a normal childhood before you had to face what you truly are."
"What am I?" I whisper.
"You're a Luna Priestess—the first one born in a thousand years. You carry both divine and mortal blood, which means you can do things no god or human can do alone. You can heal what shouldn't be healed. Kill what shouldn't die. See across time. Bend reality itself." The Oracle's voice grows urgent. "But that power comes with a price. It feeds on emotion. If you're full of love and hope, it becomes creation. If you're full of hate and pain, it becomes destruction. Right now, you're balanced on the edge. One push either way, and your fate is sealed."
The guards outside start chanting. Magic builds around my cell—execution magic.
"They're going to kill you," the Oracle says. "Right now, while you're vulnerable. Calista gave the order. She's afraid of what you'll become."
Rage explodes inside me. After everything—after my family's betrayal, after being dragged to this place, after learning my mother was murdered—now they want to kill me before I can even defend myself?
The power inside me roars in response to my anger. The black veins spread further up my arms. The shadows in my light grow thicker, darker, hungrier.
"That's the wrong path," the Oracle warns. "If you let rage control your power, you become the monster they fear. But Lyra—" She grips my shoulders. "If you let love guide you, you become unstoppable. What will you choose?"
Before I can answer, the guards' spell completes.
A beam of pure white light shoots through the bars, aimed directly at my heart.
I don't think. I just react.
My power explodes outward in a wave of silver and shadow that shatters the cell walls, the guards' spell, the suppression symbols on the floor—everything.
The entire prison wing collapses.
When the dust settles, I'm standing in the center of the destruction, my body glowing with power I don't understand. The guards are unconscious but alive. The Oracle is gone, vanished as mysteriously as she appeared.
And through the broken walls, I see the entire Celestial Court staring at me in horror.
Calista stands at the front, her face twisted with fury and triumph. "You see?" she shouts to the assembled gods. "The corruption has taken her! She's become exactly what I warned you about! She must be destroyed NOW!"
Hundreds of warriors raise their weapons.
I look down at my hands—still glowing with that mixed light and shadow—and realize with crushing despair that they're right.
I'm out of control. Dangerous. Everything they feared.
Maybe I should just let them end this. Maybe the world is safer without me.
Then I feel it.
The bond surges to full strength, and Kael's voice fills my mind: "Don't you DARE give up. I'm coming. Hold on."
A portal tears open in the middle of the courtyard.
Kael steps through, his black armor smoking with power, his silver eyes blazing with protective fury. Behind him, Commander Darius and a dozen other warriors emerge—allies willing to fight the entire Court.
"Anyone who touches her," Kael's voice echoes with deadly promise, "dies screaming."
He looks at me across the ruined prison, and through the bond, I feel everything he won't say out loud: I see you. I believe in you. You're not a monster. You're mine to protect, and I'll burn this whole realm down before I let them hurt you.
For the first time since my power awakened, the shadows in my light calm slightly.
But then Calista smiles—cold and victorious.
"You're too late, Reaper. Look at her. She's already lost to the darkness. And now, so are you."
She snaps her fingers.
The ground beneath Kael explodes.