Luna Everleigh's POV
***
The battlefield was chaos.
Clashing steel. Snarls and screams. The air was thick with the scent of blood and magic, the ground slick with mud and bodies.
I moved through it like a shadow, striking when I needed to, dodging when I had to. But something was off.
Every time I should have been hit—every time an arrow should have pierced my skin, or a blade should have sliced me—it didn't. My body moved before I could think, as if something deep inside me was guiding me, pushing me toward survival.
Then I saw him.
Damian stood near the ridge, away from the chaos, his dark cloak billowing. He wasn't fighting. He was watching.
Why?
I barely had time to process it before a shadow loomed over me.
A hunter, his face twisted with rage, lunged forward. The silver blade in his hands gleamed under the moonlight, aimed straight for my heart.
I couldn't move fast enough.
The world seemed to slow.
I heard my heartbeat—one, two—time stretching impossibly long.
The blade should have pierced me. Should have ended me.
But instead—
Something inside me snapped.
A wave of energy erupted from my chest, an invisible force that sent the hunter flying backward with a strangled scream. The ground beneath me cracked, the air shimmering like heat off a fire.
I gasped, staggering back. My hands trembled.
"What… what was that?"
Across the battlefield, Rhydian's head snapped toward me, his golden eyes wide with shock.
Damian, for the first time, looked afraid.
And somewhere deep inside me, something ancient stirred.
***
(To be continued…)