The Last Moonbane

Seraphina's POVI awoke abruptly, the vibrations from my bedroom door slamming into the wall jolting me from my dreams. My heart raced, the sharp noise still ringing in my ears as I shot upright in bed. "Seraphina!" Stephen’s voice broke through the disorienting fog of sleep, pulling me into focus.Stephen. His voice trembled in a way I hadn’t heard since we were children. A primal instinct kicked in, my body immediately tense, every nerve alert. Stephen is my twin brother, with the same striking golden hair and sapphire-like eyes as mine. We’ve always shared an unbreakable bond, something deeper than just blood. His gaze is usually soft, comforting in its familiarity. I love staring into his eyes, the way they reflect my image back at me, a perfect mirror of ourselves. Seeing myself in his eyes, calm and serene, often brought me a strange, inexplicable joy.But now, those same eyes—those beautiful, kind eyes—were filled with terror.He burst into the room, and in one fluid motion, wr

Seraphina's POVMy reasoning was simple: though the heads of the Moonbane family were prodigious, possessing unmatched talents, they were also prone to dying young. My grandmother, the former head of the family, had died at the age of thirty-five.Thirty-five. It was such a young age, even by human standards. From what I had learned, the advancements in human medicine had pushed their average lifespan to seventy or even eighty years. For a wolf as powerful as my grandmother to die at thirty-five seemed... wrong. Unnatural. And yet, this was the fate that awaited every head of the family. It was part of our legacy—a legacy both glorious and cursed.But fortune had smiled on the Moonbane family, for every time one head passed away, a new pair of twins had already been born to carry on the family’s honor. By the time my grandmother died, my mother had been strong enough to assume leadership. Now, at sixteen, Stephen and I were already supposed to be learning to manage family affairs, pre

Seraphina's POVWithout another word, I tugged Stephen along with me, and we began to sprint through the winding paths of the Moonbane estate toward the ancient castle where our mother resided. The castle had been our family’s stronghold for generations—since the birth of the Moonbane lineage itself. Its towering spires, cloaked in shadow, loomed ominously in the distance, like a silent sentinel watching over our cursed bloodline.It had always been a place we visited sparingly, and only when absolutely necessary. Though it was our home, the castle had always felt more like a relic of the past, its stone walls cold and unwelcoming. Stephen and I had spent most of our lives in the smaller residences on the outskirts of the estate, closer to Helena’s warm, comforting presence.But now, as we raced through the castle’s grand entrance, the weight of its history pressed down on us like never before.The corridors were vast and empty, the eerie silence broken only by the echo of our footste

Seraphina's POVIf those cracks continued to spread, if the shadows finally gave way to the moonlight, something would escape. Something far worse than the death that loomed over my mother now. A terror unlike anything I had ever known was about to be unleashed.I stepped forward, my feet moving before I could think. But just as I took another step, my mother’s figure wavered, her form becoming less solid, like a mirage slowly dissipating into the air. She seemed to be fading away, like she was no longer part of this world, as if an invisible barrier separated her from the rest of us.At that moment, she raised her right arm—her shadowy hand trembling—and pressed her fingers to her forehead. The flowers stopped growing for a brief moment, held at bay by her sheer will. But it was only temporary. The moon’s light was getting stronger, and I could see the flowers beginning to pulse again, as if they were ready to burst forth at any second.But then, something unexpected happened.She sm