Luna Everleigh's POV
***
Somewhere, far away, I could feel them.
Rhydian. Kael. Nalia.
Their presence was faint, but it was there—like distant stars in an endless void. They were searching for me.
But time was slipping through my fingers like sand.
And Seraphine knew it.
She stepped closer, reaching out with one delicate hand. "This doesn't have to be painful, Luna. Just let go. Become what you were always meant to be."
Her fingertips brushed against my forehead—
And suddenly, I saw her.
Morganna.
Not as a shadow. Not as a whisper.
But as she truly was.
She stood at the heart of the darkness, draped in flowing obsidian robes that shifted like living ink. Her eyes—gods, her eyes—were not empty pits of darkness as I had imagined, but brimming with something else entirely.
Pain.
Endless, all-consuming grief.
It struck me like a blow to the chest.
Morganna's power had never come from the darkness itself.
It came from wounds that had never healed.
From agony so deep, it had twisted into something else.
I stared at her, my pulse hammering, as realization settled in my bones.
This wasn't just a battle of power.
This was a battle of soul.
***
To be continued...