I wasn’t chosen. I was offered—stripped, scarred, and sold to the shadows.
The Temple of the Moonshade reeked of blood, rot, and incense thick enough to choke a goddess.
Moonflower petals fell in slow spirals from the open spires above, catching firelight from enchanted braziers lining the obsidian walls. The blossoms were bone-white, their veins threaded with faint cobalt as they descended like a mourning veil—each one delicate as ash, each one sticking to the sweat on my bare chest like they wanted to mark me too.
I lay flat on the sacrificial altar, a slab of black stone slick with old magic and older blood. Beneath my spine, carved runes pulsed in faint red light, as if the stone itself had a heartbeat. My wrists and ankles were bound, not by rope or chain, but by living shadows: cold, silken, and sentient. They slithered around my skin like vines, tightening every time I breathed too hard.
I refused to scream.
Above me stood the High Priestess Nemia, draped in robes spun from silver thread, her face a perfect mask of serenity. She moved like she thought she was divine—each step slow, deliberate, theatrical. Her fingers were stained black from the sacred ink; her lips shimmered with oil blessed by dead gods. She lifted a curved blade etched with sigils, the steel catching torchlight like it hungered for it.
Her voice rang out into the vaulted chamber, soft and terrible. “Seris, child of the bloodline Starspire, you stand before the altar of Veil and Vow. You offer your body. You offer your blood. Do you accept your fate?”
“Fuck you,” I said.
Gasps rippled from the acolytes around the circle. They stood shrouded in silver veils, each holding a moonflower torch that hissed with unnatural flame. Behind them, stained-glass windows stretched floor to dome, casting the scene in fractured hues of violet and blue. Each pane showed the Moonshade Prince in some glorious violence—standing atop a mountain of corpses, drinking the soul of a weeping girl, dragging a chained bride into a gate of black fire.
My version would’ve been better. I’d have shown her biting off his finger.
The High Priestess’s expression never wavered. “You will scream for him.”
“I’ll scream for your funeral.”
She smiled then. Just a flicker. “The Veil doesn’t require your consent. Only your blood.”
The blade descended.
The pain was immediate and endless. The knife bit into the soft hollow between my collarbones and dragged downward, precise and slow. I arched off the stone, every muscle screaming, but the shadows held me down. My blood spilled in lazy rivulets, soaking the altar. The carved runes beneath me glowed brighter, pulsing with magic as they drank. The air grew thick with power—raw and electric, like the moment before lightning struck.
The Priestess leaned close, her breath ghosting my ear. “This isn’t punishment, Seris. This is purpose.”
“Then why do you look so pleased to see me bleed?”
The mark began to form. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it—a sigil carved into my skin with ritual precision, each cut radiating cold fire that sank into my bones. It throbbed in time with some external rhythm, something ancient and wrong. Above me, the moonflowers stopped falling.
The chamber fell still. The shadows recoiled from the altar’s edge. And then, the Veil tore open.
The air didn’t break—it shattered. A jagged rip split the space above the altar like a wound in the sky. From it spilled darkness thicker than night, edged with starlight, screaming in a voice only my blood could hear. And through it reached a hand.
Clawed. Scarred. Familiar.
My chest locked. The sigil the Priestess had carved into my body burned white-hot, a scream beneath my skin.
“No,” I whispered.
Too late.
The hand grabbed my wrist.
The altar split. Magic exploded in a shockwave of light and shadow.
And I was pulled through the gate.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Falling wasn’t the right word.
I was torn.
Ripped from flesh and time and breath, dragged through a wound in the world that screamed as it swallowed me. Shadows surged like water around my body—thick, freezing, sentient. They coiled around my limbs, slid beneath my skin, pried open memories I didn’t know I had. Whispers followed—fragments of some forgotten tongue slithering into my ears, curling down my spine like vines of ink. The mark on my chest burned so bright I could taste the fire, could feel it lashing outward, branding the inside of my ribs. My body convulsed. I wasn’t sure if I was breathing, or just unravelling.
Then—
Impact.
I slammed into solid ice, the breath knocked clean out of me. Pain lanced through my shoulder as I skidded across a floor slick with frost, my palms shredding against crystal that gleamed like polished obsidian. Blood smeared across the black as I tried, failed, to get my knees under me. Cold tore into me—deep and sudden, like drowning in a sea made of knives. My lungs spasmed. Every breath sliced. The air tasted of winter and ash and old, old magic. It scraped across my tongue like regret.
I forced my head up. And froze.
The hall around me was vast and starless. An endless cathedral of shadows and ice. Pillars soared into darkness, wrapped in twisting runes that pulsed with ghostlight. Blue fire crackled in sconces shaped like screaming mouths, casting warped reflections across a floor that gleamed like a lake of glass. My own reflection stared back at me—cut, bloodied, wide-eyed. A girl unmade.
At the far end of the chamber, raised on a dais of frost-slick bone, a throne sat beneath a vaulted arch of curling antlers and black iron. And on that throne lounged him.
Not a man. Not a god. Something in between, wearing both like armor.
Vaelrin. The Moonshade Prince.
He was draped in shadows that moved like smoke—alive and coiling across his shoulders. His armor was blacker than the Veil, forged in shapes that mocked wolf fangs and serpent coils. The pauldrons gleamed with rubies that blinked like open eyes. His skin was sun-dark, streaked with glowing white scars that webbed across his collarbones and throat like constellations written in grief. His braids were long and thick, threaded with roses so black they gleamed violet in the torchlight—petals brittle and dry, like they'd been plucked from a battlefield grave. Silver eyes—slitted, unnatural—glinted with amusement as they locked on mine.
He didn’t rise. He didn’t need to.
“I expected a sobbing virgin,” he said. His voice rolled across the ice like smoke and thunder, like silk stitched with barbed wire.
I forced myself upright, breath ragged. “Send me back.”
Vaelrin tilted his head, one brow arching. “You were offered. There are no refunds.”
“Then break the bond.”
He stood in one slow, fluid motion—more panther than prince. Shadows licked at his boots as he descended the steps of his throne. With every step, the mark on my chest pulsed harder, hotter, screaming for something I refused to name.
“No,” he said, stopping a few feet away. “You bleed with my name. You called me.”
“I called no one.”
He smiled, slow and cruel. “But your blood did.”
The words slammed into me with more force than the fall. I didn’t let it show. I lunged.
I don’t remember deciding to. Rage just moved my body. I went for his throat with everything I had left—blood-slick fists, broken fingernails, teeth bared. Vaelrin moved like the shadows he commanded—fast, fluid, inevitable. One second I was airborne, the next I was pinned against a pillar of glittering ice, his hand wrapped around my throat, not squeezing—just there, reminding me who held the leash.
“You think this is still the Temple?” he murmured, head dipping low. “That you’re some trembling little girl to be spared? You crossed the Veil, human. You belong to me now.”
“I belong to no one,” I spat.
Then I drove my knee into his groin.
He grunted—less in pain, more in surprise.
“Good,” he said, mouth twisting. “Keep that.”
And then he laughed—full and sharp, like he hadn’t laughed in years. It echoed through the Moonshade Court like a promise of violence. He stepped back. Let me go.
I nearly collapsed but caught myself.
“Run,” he said, eyes glittering.
I didn’t wait.
I ran.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
The corridors were alive.
The air pulsed with dark rhythm, each heartbeat not mine. Walls bled with etched glyphs that slithered just under the surface, twitching like nerves flayed open. I could feel them moving even when I didn’t look—an itch beneath my thoughts, a whispering along my spine. Every surface exhaled magic, wet and greedy, as if the castle itself hungered for something. Staircases twisted and devoured themselves, swallowing paths I’d already taken. Doors blinked in and out of reality. The temperature dropped with every turn, burning cold that turned the breath in my lungs to ice, that made my blood crawl slow and heavy.
Ash clung to the air like fog. Old snow and something fouler—like burnt hair and charred marrow—curled in my nose. My bare feet, slick with blood, slipped on the frost-laced stone, each step leaving a jagged trail behind me. A breadcrumb offering. A dare. The mark on my chest pulsed.
Every corridor I fled down felt narrower, as though I was crawling deeper into a dead god’s ribcage. And behind me, closer now, he laughed.
Low. Amused. Possessive.
My heart thundered against my ribs as I turned another corner and—
I stumbled into a cavernous chamber so wide and cold it stole the breath from my lungs.
Thousands of moths clung to the domed ceiling above, their wings shimmering in celestial hues—soft silvers, broken starlight, the color of forgotten moons. Their glow bathed the room in a ghostly shimmer, constellations rippling across the glass-slick floor. The cold here was different. Still. Watching.
At the chamber’s center sat a pool of black water, still as glass. It pulsed faintly, in time with the mark on my chest. Something moved beneath its surface. A presence.
I stepped back, the soles of my feet screaming against the ice.
And then I felt it. Breath against my neck. “Lost already?”
His voice slithered across the air, silken and amused. “Pity.”
I spun.
Vaelrin stood in the arched threshold behind me. No armor. Just shadow-woven pants and a black tunic, half unlaced—exposing bronze skin, muscle carved by war, and glowing scars mapped like broken constellations across his chest. His braids were loose now, wild strands tangled that brushed his shoulders like wilting ghosts. His silver eyes—still slitted, still monstrous—devoured me with a predator’s patience.
“You look exhausted,” he murmured, voice low and honeyed. “Should I carry you?”
I didn’t answer.
“Get fucked,” I snarled as I hurled a jagged shard of stone at his head.
Shadows rose like a tide, catching the projectile mid-air and crushing it into sparkling dust.
“Temper, temper,” he said. But he was smiling. I ran straight at him.
I slammed into him with everything I had left. Nails clawed at his face, elbows aimed for his throat, knee driving upward with lethal intent. I fought like a creature cornered, because I was. And I wanted to hurt him.
But his shadows were faster than thought. They surged around me, coiling like chains, wrapping around wrists and ankles, chest and throat, until I was suspended, spun midair like a marionette in the grip of some cruel god. My limbs strained. Every inch of me burned. The more I twisted, the tighter the grip.
And still I fought.
Vaelrin stepped forward, unhurried. Shadows peeled away from his skin like smoke, curling in anticipation. His hand rose—slow, deliberate—and he brushed his knuckles along the curve of my jaw. His touch was cold. Not the chill of weather, but the kind of cold that slipped beneath the skin and didn’t leave.
“You smell like starlight,” he said, reverent and cruel in the same breath.
I spat at him. Missed.
He didn’t flinch. His gaze dropped to my chest, to the glowing sigil carved into me by temple blades and sealed in blood. His hand moved, light as silk, and touched it. The world ignited. Not with pain. Rage.
I didn’t scream.
I roared.
The mark flared in furious cobalt, power lancing outward like a blade forged from wrath. My blood caught fire, and for a single, perfect second, the shadows recoiled from me, hissing.
Vaelrin’s eyes widened—shock flashing like moonlight on a blade. I took my chance and slammed my forehead straight into his. The impact rang through my skull like a war drum. He reeled back, hissing as shadows flared and snapped around us.
But the bond—gods, the bond—was no longer just a thread. It was a chain yanked taut. Magic ripped through me. Through him.
It didn’t feel like power. It felt like drowning. Like burning. Like being dragged under a sea of stars made from knives.
My chest arched as my throat tore open in a silent scream. White heat devoured my vision.
And then—
Nothing.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
I came back to myself in velvet and silence.
The bed beneath me was obscenely soft: pillowed in shadows, draped in midnight silk that clung to my bare skin like a memory. But the comfort was a lie. The chains binding my wrists and ankles hadn’t vanished; they’d merely gone quiet. Coiled like serpents around my limbs, purring with his magic. Cold. Loyal. Patient.
The scent hit me next—bergamot steeped in iron and smoke. I reluctantly opened my eyes. The fire in the hearth across the room burned blue. It didn’t crackle. It hummed, casting no warmth, only soft light that rippled like water across the polished bone floor. The room itself was a fever dream carved from nightmare.
Books lined the walls, leather-bound, though I didn’t want to guess what kind. The shelves were sculpted from ribcages, the spines of old beasts twisted into spiralled arches overhead. A chandelier made of antlers and broken swords hung above the bed, dripping wax the color of dried blood in long, slow rivulets. Curtains of shadow-threaded silk drifted even though the windows were sealed. The air pulsed with breathless waiting.
And beside me, in a high-backed chair of carved obsidian and thorned velvet, sat the devil himself.
Vaelrin. Barefoot. Shirtless. At ease.
One leg hooked lazily over the other, a goblet of dark wine dangling from his fingers like it weighed nothing. The blue fire painted his skin in shadowed golds and whites, highlighting every scar across his chest—each glowing mark etched with stories I didn’t want to hear. His braids spilled loose over one shoulder, the dead roses woven through them now blacker than ever, curling at the edges.
His silver eyes watched me. Predatory.
“You bite harder than the last one,” he said, voice low, smooth as ruin. “I approve.”
My mouth felt dry. My throat scraped like it had been kissed by flame. Still, I rasped, “You chain girls to your bed often, or am I just lucky?”
His smile was slow. “Only the ones who try to kill me.”
Like I came close. Didn't even scratch the bastard.
“Next time,” I promised, tugging at the shadows curled around my wrists.
He lifted a brow. “That’s the spirit.”
The chains pulsed beneath my skin, reacting to my rage. They tightened—not to hurt, but to remind. And the mark carved into my chest flared in answer, heat blooming across my sternum like a bruise set to detonate.
“You won’t break it,” he murmured, and gods, his voice—how could a sound feel like silk and steel at once? “The bond runs deeper than flesh now. Deeper than blood.”
He raised the goblet but didn’t drink, his gaze never leaving mine. Something in my chest twisted. I turned my face away. Jaw clenched. Heart pacing the walls of my ribs like a caged thing.
“This isn’t over,” I whispered, voice shaking with everything I refused to show him.
“Good,” Vaelrin said softly. “You’re far more interesting than the others.”
The words landed like a bruise. I didn’t ask. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. And I made myself a vow. A promise inked in the hollow of my bones.
I would burn this court to ash.
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