The Underground Moon Temple breathed like a living thing.
Moonlight did not fall here—it rose, bleeding upward from a crystal well at the center of the chamber. Pale silver veins ran through the stone floor, pulsing softly, as though the earth itself remembered the sky.
Luneth stepped carefully into the circular hall, boots silent against ancient marble. She had come seeking shelter, nothing more. That was what she told herself.
The walls were carved with sigils older than kingdoms, their edges worn smooth by centuries of unanswered prayers. Forgotten gods watched from half-erased reliefs, their eyes hollow, their mouths sealed.
And then she saw it.
A single slab of moonstone stood apart from the rest—untouched by dust, uncracked by time. Runes burned faintly across its surface, arranged in a spiral that drew her closer despite herself.
Her pulse quickened.
She reached out.
The stone was warm.
The runes brightened beneath her fingers, silver light flaring like breath drawn after a long sleep. Words emerged—not etched, but remembered.
She read them aloud, voice barely more than a whisper.
When moon is crowned with silver flame,
And ash falls soft as snow,
A child of night, unnamed, unclaimed,
From broken halls shall go.
Her throat tightened.
She bears no blade yet ends the reign
Of fire that cannot die…
The air shifted. The crystal well pulsed harder, light climbing the walls.
Beware the cure the stars conceal,
Mistaken for a foe…
Luneth staggered back.
“A cure,” she murmured. “They call this a curse.”
Her reflection shimmered faintly in the stone—older, sharper, not quite human. She pressed her palm flat against the slab, breath unsteady.
That was when the temple reacted.
The runes dimmed.
Then vanished.
A seam appeared in the stone—thin as a scar.
The slab shifted.
Luneth gasped as the upper layer slid aside with a sound like grinding bone, revealing a second surface beneath—untouched, forbidden, sealed by ancient will.
Blackened runes burned themselves into existence, not silver but deep moon-shadow, as if carved from night itself.
Her hand burned.
Her blood—one drop—fell onto the stone.
The hidden line awakened.
The dragon is not the beast to be slain,
But the heart to be returned.
Only the Moonfire-born may choose—
And by her choice, gods shall end.
The light exploded.
Luneth cried out as power surged through her veins—not violent, not cruel—but terrifyingly whole. Visions tore through her mind: a kneeling dragon, ash drifting like petals, a man with silver hair and eyes full of sorrow.
And love.
Unwanted. Unasked for.
She tore her hand away, stumbling back as the slab sealed itself again, the forbidden words erased as if they had never been.
The temple fell silent.
Luneth stood shaking, heart hammering against her ribs.
“No,” she whispered.
She had been running from monsters.
From fire.
From fate.
She did not yet know that fate had already begun to run toward her.
And somewhere far above, a Dragon Lord crossed into the world of men—seeking a cure—unaware that he had just been named by the gods themselves.
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