The sphere in Selene's palm throbbed—a heartbeat tethered to a memory she could barely grasp.
Around her, the ruins whispered. Not with the wind, but with voices—fractured fragments of a time when gods walked among mortals, when light and shadow danced in dangerous harmony.
Selene stepped forward, the cracked stones beneath her feet humming faintly, alive with a magic that was older than the stars. She reached the altar of obsidian shards, where the sphere pulsed brighter, as if sensing the place's ancient power.
A sudden chill curled around her spine. She spun — eyes locking with a figure emerging from the smoke and ash. He was impossibly tall, draped in a cloak woven from night itself. His gaze, cold and infinite, saw through her—into the marrow of her soul.
"You seek the Veins of Light," he said, voice like a blade's edge softened by silk. "But beware, Selene. To touch forgotten light is to drown in its darkness."
Her breath caught. "If I don't, who will?"
A shadow moved behind him — silent, twisting, impossible to read.
"Choices bind us like chains," he whispered. "But some chains are meant to be broken… or shattered."
Lightning cracked above, tearing the sky's fractured veil. The sphere shattered in her hand, shards exploding like stars. Pain flared—sharp, exquisite—then nothing but cold silence.
Yet inside her, something ancient stirred. The reckoning had begun.