Page 14 of Moonlit Desires

Lysander laughs, the sound echoing unnaturally. "Am I? I think not." He gestures, and the blue energy web pulses. Maya stirs, whimpering in pain. "One step closer, and your princess's pet human dies. Painfully."

Lyra feels something shift inside her—a current of heat that starts at the mark on her back and flows through her veins like liquid silver. The pendant against her skin grows warm, then hot, pulsing in time with her anger.

"What do you want?" she demands.

"Only what my lord demands," Lysander replies. "You, Princess Lyra, surrendering yourself to the Storm Court. In exchange for your human's life, of course."

"And if I refuse?"

Lysander's smile widens, showing teeth too sharp for comfort. "Then I collapse this energy web, and your friend's heart stops beating. Simple cause and effect."

Below, the sounds of fighting intensify. A crash shakes the lighthouse, sending dust cascading from the ceiling. Thorne howls, the sound abruptly cut short. Ashen flinches, and Lyra knows he's seeing possible futures splinter and reform.

"Decide quickly, princess," Lysander says, examining his nails with affected boredom. "Your guardians cannot hold out forever against storm magic on rising waters."

Maya's eyes flutter open, confusion giving way to terror as she realizes her situation. "Lyra?" she gasps, voice thread-thin with pain. "What's happening?"

"It's okay," Lyra says, trying to project a confidence she doesn't feel. "I'm going to get you out of this."

Lysander sighs dramatically. "Touching, but ultimately futile. The only way out is through me, and the only currency I accept is your surrender." His eyes narrow. "Lord Stormborn has waited centuries for this moment. The last royal blood, delivered into his hands. With you, he can ensure the Moon Court never rises again."

The silver heat in Lyra's veins intensifies, spreading to her fingertips. She feels strange, as if her skin has become too small to contain what's growing inside her. The mark on her backburns, no longer painful but powerful, and the pendant at her throat gleams with increasing brightness.

Riven notices the change, her mercury eyes widening. "Lyra," she whispers. "Your hands."

Lyra looks down. Silver light spills from her palms, liquid and glowing like mercury, forming patterns in the air that seem to have meaning just beyond her comprehension. Moonweaving, she realizes. The art her mother mastered. The magic in her blood awakening at last.

Lysander's confidence falters. "Impossible," he breathes. "The curse blocks all Moon Court magic."

"The curse blocks Moon Court magic within the Court," Ashen says, his quiet voice suddenly clear as a bell. "Not outside it. Not here. Not in her."

Lyra feels the truth of it resonate through her being. The silver light spreads up her arms, across her shoulders, illuminating the crescent mark on her back until it shines through her clothing. Knowledge floods her mind—not memories, exactly, but instincts buried deep in her blood, now rising to the surface.

"I am the daughter of Ella Moonshadow," she says, her voice overlaid with harmonics that fill the chamber. "I am the heir to the Moon Court. And you will release my friend."

Lysander snarls, abandoning his veneer of civility. Storm energy gathers in his hands, blue-white and crackling. "You are nothing! A half-trained child playing with power she doesn't understand!"

He hurls a bolt of lightning toward her. Instinctively, Lyra raises her hands, and the silver light forms a shield before her—not solid, but a weaving of moonlight threads that catch the storm magic and transform it, absorbing its energy into the pattern.

Lysander's eyes widened in shock. "That's not possible."

"And yet," Riven drawls, shadows gathering around her like a cloak, "here we are."

Lyra steps forward, the silver light pulsing with each movement. The threads of moonlight extend from her fingers, weaving through the air toward Maya's prison. Where they touch the blue energy web, they begin to unravel it, thread by thread, converting storm magic to lunar power.

Lysander howls in fury and lunges toward Maya, hands crackling with killing energy. Riven intercepts him, her shadow-blades slashing across his chest. He staggers back, silver blood seeping through his cloak.

"Quickly," Ashen urges Lyra. "The patterns shift. Our window narrows."

Lyra focuses on the silver threads flowing from her hands, directing them with instinct rather than thought. They wrap around Maya's suspended form, gently dissolving the storm magic that holds her. As the last threads of the energy web come apart, Maya drops. Ashen darts forward, catching her before she hits the floor.

Lysander recovers, his handsome face contorted with rage. "Lord Stormborn will not be denied! The Moon Court must fall!" He gathers power for another attack, the air around him darkening as storm clouds form inside the chamber.

"You're right about one thing," Lyra says, the silver light now engulfing her entirely. "The Moon Court has fallen. But not in the way Caelum intended."

Understanding dawns in Lysander's eyes, too late. "No—"

Lyra raises her hands, and the moonlight surges forward in a torrent of silver fire. It wraps around Lysander, not burning but binding, weaving through his very essence. He struggles, storm magic flaring against the silver threads, but the moonlight is relentless.

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