The sun hadn't yet reached my attic window when I awoke, muscles stiff from another night of restless sleep. My dreams had been vivid again—the river, the forest, Kael's eyes glowing in the dark. I rubbed my wrist where the crescent-shaped mark burned faintly, and a chill ran down my spine.
I didn't have time to ponder it. My stepmother's voice rang through the hall, shrill and relentless.
"Aria! Breakfast, and make it quick! Don't want you wasting time thinking about your own nonsense!"
I obeyed silently, moving like a ghost through the kitchen. My stepfather grunted from his chair, barely glancing up from his mug. They treated me as if I were a servant, nothing more—and yet, somehow, I had learned to endure.
Some mornings, I would stare into the cracked mirror above the sink, wondering if I would ever be seen as more than a shadow. My reflection stared back—pale, dark-eyed, hair tangled from restless sleep. And yet, there was something changing. Something I could feel deep in my bones, though I couldn't yet name it.
I remembered the whispers, soft but commanding, echoing in my mind:
You are not weak. You are mine. You are stronger than you know.
I shivered and shook my head, trying to brush it off. But the feeling of being watched never left me. And today, as I carried the water bucket toward the river, that feeling grew stronger.
Far above the treetops, Kael Draven paused, his senses stretching across the village like tendrils of shadow. He had tried to deny it—deny me, deny the bond, deny the Red Moon Goddess herself—but the pull was relentless. Every time he thought of me, his chest tightened, his mind refused to accept the truth.
"This is not what it's supposed to be," he muttered to himself, pacing the edge of the forest. "She is… she is too weak, too small, too human."
Yet every instinct in his body screamed otherwise.
When I reached the riverbank, the sun was rising, painting the water in streaks of gold and silver. I knelt to fill my bucket, unaware that Kael's shadow stretched toward me across the trees. He had been watching, silently judging, fighting the bond that tied him to me before he had even accepted it.
"You feel it, don't you?" a voice murmured in my mind—soft, commanding, yet familiar. I flinched and looked around. The river was empty. The forest was silent. But the air hummed with energy, and my mark burned hotter than ever.
Kael stepped from the shadows then, silent as a predator. His presence made my breath hitch. "You're stronger than I thought," he said, voice low, almost incredulous.
"I—I don't know what you mean," I stammered, gripping the edge of the bucket. My heart pounded, and I felt a warmth crawling up my spine.
Kael's gaze softened in a flash, but then darkened. "I should walk away," he muttered. "I… cannot accept this."
"I… what?" I asked, confusion and fear twisting together.
He shook his head, muscles tense, every line of his body coiled like a spring. "The bond. The Red Moon. You… you're mine. And I cannot accept it. Not now."
I opened my mouth to reply, but words failed me. My pulse raced; the wind seemed to carry whispers I couldn't understand.
"You will awaken soon," Kael said, his eyes flickering with something unreadable—pain, desire, fear. "And when you do… everything will change."
And with that, he turned, slipping back into the shadows of the forest, leaving me trembling, the water in the bucket sloshing over the edge.
I stayed there, frozen, staring at the empty riverbank. The whispers inside my mind thrummed louder now:
You are not weak. You are mine. You are stronger than you know.
For the first time, I wondered if my life as a shadow, as someone invisible, was over. If destiny had been quietly waiting for me all along, and I had been too blind to see it.
I carried the water home, each step heavier than the last, as the sun climbed higher and the world continued, oblivious, around me. I had no idea what the future held—but I knew, deep down, that it would not be ordinary.
And I knew that Kael Draven would not let it be.
Not because he couldn't, but because it was not in his nature.