Page 65 of Crowned By the Shadow
“Come back to us,” I whispered, my voice breaking with effort. “Come back to yourself.”
With a sound like shattering glass, the darkness finally broke. It peeled away from the silver light at the core, revealing a figureof breathtaking beauty, the Moon Goddess in her true form, free of corruption at last.
She floated before us, disoriented and weak, her luminous eyes blinking as if seeing the world anew. When her gaze fell upon Van, a tremor ran through her entire being.
“You,” she breathed, her voice like wind through silver chimes. “After all this time...”
Van stepped forward, his lyre silent now as he reached out with one trembling hand. “My love,” he whispered. “My heart. My balance.”
Their fingers touched, and a surge of power rippled outward, a shockwave of harmony that made the very fabric of reality sing. Light and shadow, day and night, life and death, all the opposing forces that made existence possible flowed back into balance.
I staggered backward, exhausted beyond measure, the Twilight Crown growing dim as its purpose was fulfilled. Thorn caught me, his strong arms keeping me from falling as the Moon Blades dissolved into motes of silver light.
“You did it,” he murmured against my hair. “You restored her.”
But our victory was not yet complete. The void corruption that had been separated from the goddess now roiled nearby, a mass of hungry darkness seeking a new host, a new purpose.
“It’s not over,” Wyn warned, shadows gathering protectively around her like a cloak of living darkness, coiling and shifting with each breath she took. “The corruption still exists. It will seek to infect another powerful being, something or someone with enough magical energy to sustain it. Look how it’s moving, searching, like it has a consciousness of its own.”
The inky tendrils of void energy writhed and pulsed before us, seeming almost desperate in their movements. They reached out experimentally toward the reunited divine couple, only to recoil as if burned by their harmonious light. I could feel thehunger emanating from the corruption. It was so profound it made my skin crawl beneath my Moon Mark and dread pooled in my stomach.
Chapter
Twenty-One
Senara
I stood in the heart of the cosmic prison, my body still thrumming from channeling all that power. The void, or corruption, or whatever it was, hovered before us like a sentient storm cloud, seeking a new host after being separated from the Moon Goddess. Its tendrils reached outward, testing, searching, hungry for power.
“We need to contain it,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “Before it finds another vessel.”
As if responding to my words, the darkness pulsed and surged toward us. Thorn stepped closer to me, his presence an anchor in this chaos. Wyn’s twilight magic created a temporary barrier, but I could see the strain on her face as she fought to maintain it.
“The void cannot be destroyed,” the Moon Goddess said, her newly restored voice like silver bells. “Only balanced, contained.”
Van nodded, his golden radiance dimming slightly as exhaustion caught up with him. “It is part of the cosmic order, however twisted it has become.”
Before I could respond, the mists around us shifted. The Aetherweavers we’d encountered at the threshold reappeared, but something was different about them. Their forms seemed more substantial, more defined, and strangely familiar.
“Eclipse Child,” one said, stepping forward. “You have succeeded where we failed.”
I studied the being more closely. There was something about the eyes, the tilt of the head...
“Fiona,” I whispered, recognition dawning. “You’re Fiona.”
The Aetherweaver inclined her head, and as she did, her features became clearer. The resemblance to my own face was unmistakable. She had the same high cheekbones, the same determined set of the jaw. Another Eclipse Child, from centuries past, yet eerily similar to me.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “Or what remains of her.”
The other Aetherweavers moved forward, their forms shifting and clarifying. Each one bore some resemblance to me, some subtle, some striking. Different faces, different eras, but all carrying the same burden.
“We are what remains of those who came before,” another said, her ancient eyes holding mine. “The fragments of Eclipse Children who faced the Empress and failed.”
The revelation hit me like a punch to the gut. “You’re... all of you...”
“We are what remains, we are what the Void Dragon Empress referred to as sacrifices,” Fiona repeated. “When an Eclipse Child failed to restore balance, their essence was not destroyed but fragmented. We became guardians of the threshold, witnesses to the cycle, bound to this place until the balance is restored.”
I looked at each of them, these echoes of past lives, past attempts. How many had tried? How many had failed? The weight of their collective sacrifice pressed down on me.
