Luna Everleigh's POV
***
The mark on my wrist burned.
Not physically—but somewhere deeper, like it had rooted itself inside me, demanding to be acknowledged.
Nalia traced the dark patterns with careful fingers, her expression unreadable. The soft glow of candlelight made the silver streaks in her dark hair gleam, and for the first time since I'd met her, there was something close to unease in her usually steady gaze.
"This mark," she murmured, flipping through the worn pages of an ancient book spread open before us, "is eerily similar to a symbol I've only seen in one place before."
I swallowed hard. "Where?"
She turned the book, revealing a faded illustration. The same swirling patterns coiled across the page, carved into the skin of a figure cloaked in shadow. The text beneath was written in a language I couldn't read, but the weight of it pressed against my ribs like a warning.
"It's tied to a legend," Nalia continued, voice quiet. "A bloodline thought to have vanished long ago. A lineage that was never meant to exist."
The air in the library thickened.
I stared at the illustration, a strange pulse of familiarity stirring in my bones.
Before I could speak, the flames in the lanterns flickered. My breath hitched as a sudden wave of exhaustion swept over me, heavy and inescapable.
Not again.
I barely had time to register Nalia's sharp voice calling my name before the world tilted—
—And I was somewhere else.
—
A throne room bathed in golden light.
The scent of pine and frost in the air.
A woman stood before me, cloaked in deep blue velvet. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders in soft curls—dark, just like mine. Her profile was strikingly familiar, as if I were staring into a distorted mirror.
She was speaking, but I couldn't hear her words.
And then—
A shadow loomed behind her. A figure stepped forward, his face shrouded, but his presence unmistakable.
Power.
Danger.
Fate.
I tried to reach for the woman, to warn her—
But the vision shattered, and I was falling—
—
I gasped awake, my body trembling.
Nalia's hands gripped my shoulders. "Luna, breathe!"
My chest heaved. The edges of my vision blurred, but my pulse pounded with a single thought:
That woman—who was she?
And why did she look exactly like me?
—
To be continued...