The moon was full the night Lyra Vale was born.
Not just full, but sacred.
It hung low in the sky, vast and watchful, casting silver light over the Virelle estate as if the Moon Goddess herself had descended to witness what fate had written.
Inside the birthing chamber, two sisters lay exhausted, their breaths uneven, their bodies trembling from labor.
Two daughters had been born.
Two lives.
Two destinies.
And only one would be allowed to exist.
A sharp cry broke through the silence.
The midwife froze.
Her hands trembled slightly as she lifted the newborn closer to the moonlight streaming through the window. For a brief moment, everything in the room seemed to still.
Then she saw it.
A faint glow shimmered against the baby’s skin.
Right below her collarbone,
A crescent mark.
The mark of the Chosen Luna.
“The Moon Goddess…” the midwife whispered, her voice barely audible. “It’s real…”
On the bed, Luna Elara stirred weakly, her lips curving into a soft, exhausted smile. “My child…”
The midwife hesitated, but only for a second, before placing the baby gently into her arms.
Elara cradled her daughter with trembling hands, tears slipping silently down her temples. “She’s perfect…”
The crescent mark pulsed faintly, as though responding to her warmth.
For a fleeting moment, peace existed.
Until the door creaked open.
Selene Virelle stepped inside.
She said nothing at first.
Her gaze moved slowly, from her sister… to the child… and then,
To the mark.
Something dark flickered in her eyes.
Not awe.
Not wonder.
But something far more dangerous.
Desire.
“How fortunate,” Selene murmured, her voice soft, almost gentle.
Elara looked up at her, unaware of the storm forming behind those calm eyes. “Sister… look. The Moon Goddess has blessed us.”
Selene stepped closer, her lips curving into a faint smile.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
“She has.”
But her eyes never left the child.
Hours later, the estate fell into silence.
The kind of silence that hides sins.
Elara slept, her body too weak to stir. Her daughter lay beside her, small and fragile, unaware that her life had already been weighed… and condemned.
Across the room, the midwife stood rigid.
Waiting.
Selene approached her slowly.
“You saw it,” Selene said.
It wasn’t a question.
The midwife swallowed hard. “My lady… that child is the true Chosen,”
“Then she is a problem.”
The words fell cold.
Final.
The midwife’s breath hitched. “You can’t mean,”
Selene stepped closer, her presence suffocating.
“You will say the child was born weak,” she said calmly. “That she did not survive the night.”
Fear flashed across the midwife’s face. “My lady,”
“Or,” Selene cut in softly, “you will not survive it either.”
Silence.
Heavy. Crushing.
Then, with shaking hands,
“…Yes, my lady.”
Selene smiled.
Satisfied.
She moved toward the bed.
For a brief moment, she stood there… watching her sleeping sister.
Then she reached down.
And lifted the child.
The baby stirred instantly, letting out a soft, fragile cry.
Selene paused.
Just for a second.
Her fingers tightened slightly around the small bundle.
Then her expression hardened.
Without another word, she turned, and walked out.
The night air was cold.
Unforgiving.
Mist clung to the ground as Selene stepped beyond the estate walls, her footsteps steady, unhurried.
The baby’s cries grew louder, echoing faintly into the darkness.
They did not move her.
She walked until the estate was nothing more than a distant shadow behind her.
Then she stopped.
Looked down.
Tiny. Helpless. Breathing.
Chosen.
A bitter smile touched her lips.
“Fate chose you,” she murmured. “But I refuse to lose to a child.”
Slowly,
She bent down.
And placed the baby on the cold, damp ground.
The infant’s cries broke into desperate, trembling sounds, her tiny body already reacting to the biting chill.
Selene straightened.
For a moment, she simply watched.
Then she turned away.
“Let the night finish what I started.”
And she walked.
Without hesitation.
Without regret.
Without ever looking back.
The moon remained.
Silent.
Unmoving.
Watching.
Time passed.
Minutes… or hours.
The cold deepened.
The cries weakened.
Fading.
Fading…
Until,
Footsteps.
A lantern flickered through the mist.
Garrick Hale.
He had not meant to take this road.
But something, something he could not explain, had led him here.
Then he heard it.
A sound.
Soft.
Broken.
He stopped.
His heart began to pound.
Slowly, he moved toward it… each step heavier than the last.
And then he saw her.
A child.
Left to die.
“By the stars…” he whispered, dropping to his knees.
His rough hands trembled as he scooped her up, pulling her against his chest. She was ice cold, too cold.
But she was alive.
Barely.
“She’s still breathing…”
The baby’s tiny fingers curled weakly against his shirt, as if clinging to the last thread of life she had left.
Something inside him broke.
Or maybe,
Something healed.
For ten long years, he and his wife had prayed for a child.
And now…
Here she was.
Not born to them.
Not given.
But found.
“I don’t know who you are,” he said softly, wrapping her tightly in his coat.
“But you’re not dying tonight.”
He held her closer, as if shielding her from the world itself.
“You’re coming home with me.”
The baby’s cries softened into a faint whimper… then quiet.
Her small body relaxed just slightly against him.
And for the first time since she had been abandoned,
She felt warmth.
Far away, within the walls of the Virelle estate,
A lie was told.
“The child… did not survive.”
A mother’s heart shattered.
A pack mourned a daughter they believed lost forever.
And the truth…
Was buried beneath silence.
Under the sacred moon, fate had been twisted.
But not broken.
Because the child they had cast aside…
The one left to die in the cold…
Was never meant to disappear.
She was meant to rise.
And one day…
The world that abandoned her would bow at her feet.
