Seraphina's POV
The voice that reached my ears was laced with hesitation, confusion, and a faint plea for confirmation, as if it came from another world entirely. It was soft yet distant, echoing in the vastness of the shadowy space that had consumed us. The malicious gaze I had felt bearing down on me earlier—cold, oppressive, and suffocating—vanished suddenly. For a fleeting moment, I felt relief as the invisible strings that had bound my body, controlling me like a puppet, loosened. I could once again feel my own limbs, reclaiming the autonomy that had been momentarily lost.
I opened my mouth, intending to speak, to ask something—anything—but before I could get the words out, the dark figure before us shifted. Its form, cloaked in shadows, stretched out its hand towards me and Stephen once again. Instinctively, I braced myself for another attempt to seize us, my pulse quickening as the familiar sense of danger washed over me.
But this time, it didn’t come to strangle or harm us.
Instead, the figure’s hand shot forward and pushed us away with startling force. Stephen and I were hurled backward, the air rushing past us as we flew several meters across the dimly lit chamber. The impact was sharp but not brutal; our wolf instincts kicked in, and we landed gracefully, finding our balance with ease.
Along with that powerful push came the sudden, agonizing shattering of the hidden space we had been trapped in. It was like watching glass fracture under immense pressure, cracks spreading in all directions before the entire illusion crumbled away. As it broke apart, a voice, filled with pain and struggle, reverberated around us, desperate yet commanding.
"Go!"
The word echoed through the room, bouncing off the walls, resonating with an urgency that made my heart clench. I glanced at Stephen, his wide blue eyes mirroring the same shock and confusion that I felt. Before either of us could move, the shadowy figure vanished from where it had stood, disappearing into thin air as if it had never been there in the first place.
And then, a heartbeat later, the figure reappeared on the massive stone altar at the center of the room. It stood at the heart of a six-pointed star etched into the ground, an ancient symbol that pulsed faintly with eerie red light, glowing like the blood-red moon hanging above us.
The figure’s face—if it could still be called that—began to crack. Thin fissures spread across the surface, revealing the faint outline of a person beneath the layers of darkness. Blood-red petals, delicate and haunting, bloomed from within those cracks, spilling out like small rivers of color against the shadowy form. The more the petals blossomed, the more the figure began to shrink and wither, as if being devoured from the inside out.
I stood frozen, my gaze locked on the figure, even as the overwhelming sense of grief and dread clawed its way into my chest. I already knew. I had known from the moment the shadows had started to take shape.
This figure—this being that was slowly being consumed by blood and shadow—was my mother. The woman who had always seemed so distant, so powerful, the current head of the Moonbane family. Lucine Moonbane.
Even though her form had been distorted beyond recognition, I could still feel her presence, faint but unmistakable. It was her. And she was dying, or worse—being devoured.
A crackling sound filled the air, and more fissures spread from the figure’s head down to its feet, opening like wounds. I could see flashes of the blood-red flowers sprouting from her, their petals gleaming under the sickening light of the moon. The flowers grew larger, expanding as if they were feeding on her very essence. The figure became more brittle, more hollow, and I couldn’t help but glance up at the sky, at the red moon, the same one that was said to be the source of the Moonbane family’s power—and its curse.
My mother was fighting it. I could see her struggling to hold the darkness around her, to control the shadows that wrapped around her like a second skin, trying to smother the flowers that sprouted from within her. But no matter how hard she fought, the gaps continued to widen, letting more of the moon’s cursed light spill into the reality around us.
And deep down, I knew. I could feel it in my bones.
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
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 POVHelena would always encourage Stephen and me to care for our mother, despite the distance between us. “Her burden is heavier than you can imagine,” Helena would say. “Being the family head isn’t just about power. It’s about the curse. The bloodline.”I didn’t understand what she meant back then. Curse. That word echoed in my mind, but I couldn’t grasp its full meaning.“Why is it a curse?” I asked Helena once, my voice small and hesitant.She hesitated, her usual warmth clouded with something I couldn’t quite place. “It just is, child. Some things are too old to be explained.” Then she’d change the subject, unwilling to give me a proper answer.Helena, despite raising us, doesn’t resemble us at all. Her skin is darker, while mine is pale, almost like porcelain—fragile and flawless. Her hair is a deep brown, common among humans, while mine gleams like gold, the trademark of our lineage. Her eyes are blue, like mine, but duller, clouded with age and something else. It’s
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 POVAt the human school, I wasn’t particularly remarkable. My grades were average, nothing special. But it didn’t matter. I had no intention of attending one of their universities. My goals were set much higher than that.My real ambition was to attend Loisage Academy, a prestigious school known only to our kind. It wasn’t a place for ordinary humans. It was a sanctuary for wolves, witches, and other magical elites. Loisage held the kind of knowledge I desperately needed—the kind that might help me break the red moon curse that had plagued my family for centuries.I knew that the answer had to be hidden somewhere in the academy’s vast collection of ancient texts. There had to be something, some spell or ancient ritual, that could finally free us from this cycle of death and loss. And if there wasn’t? Well, then I would find a way to create one myself.The weight of the curse pressed down on me more heavily with each passing year. Every time I caught a glimpse of the red mo
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