Cel's heart quickened.
"What do I need to do?" he asked. "A chant? A ritual?"
Selina shook her head. "No, there is no need for that. You only need to pray."
He hesitated.
"Pray for what?"
"Pray for whatever you desire, whatever you wish for, and whatever you long for."
Cel frowned. That was it? No structured words, no guidance?
His mind turned the words over. If his blessing was shaped by his own desires, then it wouldn't be something preordained. It would be crafted by his own will, by the deepest truths of his soul.
He had always thought of blessings as divine gifts, handed down from the gods without question. But if this one was determined by what he asked for…
The thought didn't linger. His mind had already made its decision, long before he even stepped into this place.
Without another word, Cel moved forward.
The moment he crossed into the circle of flowers, the air changed.
Density increased around him - space growing thicker, as if he had entered a place outside of time. The temperature dropped sharply, biting through flesh and settling into bone.
Beneath his feet, the ground softened. The flowers, despite their fragile appearance, did not snap under his weight. They shifted with him, welcoming rather than resisting.
His breath came slow and steady. He stepped into the heart of the circle.
The moonlight swallowed him whole.
Suddenly, the world dissolved.
Mist unraveled into silver streaks - threads pulled from reality itself, stretching and twisting around him. His senses blurred. His body untethered. He was being pulled through the veil of existence, drawn beyond the boundaries of the known.
Then—stillness.
A frozen sea stretched endlessly before him.
Cel's breath caught.
The ice was pristine. Flawless. A perfect mirror reflecting the sky above - a sky where no stars dared shine, where only the moon reigned. It loomed impossibly large, closer than any moon should be, spilling pale radiance across the world.
He took a step forward.
His footfall made no sound. The ice beneath him was smooth as polished glass. When he looked down, his reflection stared back.
Not blank like the mirror lake had shown him. Not hollow-eyed with surrender like the crystal maze had revealed. Just... him - gaunt and haunted.
For the first time, his reflection told no lies.
He took another step. The ice held firm, though it looked thin enough to shatter under breath alone.
The silence pressed against him. Not the absence of sound - something heavier. Something that swallowed his own breathing, his heartbeat, until he wasn't sure either existed anymore.
Cold air filled his lungs. Sharp. Biting. The kind of cold that didn't burn - it simply was, absolute and inescapable.
And despite everything - the desolation, the silence, the bone-deep cold - something unexpected stirred in his chest.
'Beautiful.'
The thought came unbidden, and Cel hated how true it was.
This place - this endless frozen sea beneath a silent sky - was burned into his memory. He had stood here once before. Fifteen years old, trembling in his Divine Calling, waiting for the Sun God's warmth to break through the cold. Waiting for fire and radiance to claim him as his birthright.
But the sun had never risen.
Instead, the moon had watched.
He had known then. Even before the world told him. Even before the clan cast him aside.
He had never belonged to the Sun.
The moon's light sank deeper, into muscle, into bone, until he felt translucent - as if nothing within him could remain hidden.
Exposed. Vulnerable.
And yet, he had never felt more alive.
Cel lowered himself to his knees and bowed his head, hands folded.
When he finally spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. But in the perfect stillness of the frozen sea, even whispers carried.
"Goddess of the Moon… heed my words." They left him without hesitation. No fear. No uncertainty. Only resolve.
"I desire the strength that will make me unstoppable on my journey. I wish to vanquish all who have wished for my demise and those who will do so in the future. I long for a world purged of such malice, where no one can do to others what was done to me."
Silence answered.
Then—
Moonlight.
A beam of pure, blinding silver pierced down, bathing him and the ice beneath him in radiant white.
The surface cracked.
Jagged veins of light raced outward from the impact point, spiderwebbing across the perfect mirror. They glowed from within, as though something beneath had awakened and was clawing its way upward to meet him.
The cracks spread in every direction, fracturing the frozen sea into a thousand gleaming shards that somehow held together.
Cel remained kneeling, hands folded. He felt the vibrations through his legs - subtle tremors that grew stronger with each passing heartbeat.
The reflection of the moon rippled across the fractured surface. Distorted. Shifting. Breaking apart and reforming in patterns that shouldn't exist.
His breath stopped.
Something vast swept through him.
Formless. Immeasurable. It pressed into every part of his being without force, without sound - weightless yet absolute. It stripped him to his core, exposed every fracture in his soul, every buried wound.
His back arched involuntarily. Fingers scraped against ice, leaving thin trails of frost. The world blurred, grew distant and irrelevant, as though it no longer had the strength to hold him.
He was neither falling nor rising. Suspended. Adrift in something greater, something beyond naming.
The presence enveloped him - not as shackles, not as chains. Something vast and formless that seeped into him like frost spreading across glass.
He was not bound.
He was not claimed.
He was seen.
The cracks in the ice blazed brighter. Silver light bled from each fracture, spilling across the frozen sea until the entire world became luminous veins. Above, the moon pulsed with rising intensity, each beat stronger than the last.
Cel's consciousness submerged in cold radiance. In the weight of something infinite and unknowable.
<
Light flickered - once, twice - before vanishing entirely.
The cracks sealed themselves. The ice returned to its perfect, unmarred surface, as if nothing had ever disturbed it.
Silence reclaimed the frozen sea.
Cel opened his eyes.
He swayed as he rose, balance faltering. His own weight felt wrong, unfamiliar - as if his body no longer belonged to him entirely.
The frozen sea remained beneath him - endless and still.
Then it dissolved.
Mist curled around his ankles in soft currents. The scent of moonlit flowers returned - sharp, sweet, cold. His vision sharpened, details snapping into focus with unnatural clarity.
The sacred ground thrummed beneath his feet - a rhythm that matched something deep in his chest.
He had returned.
His gaze dropped to his hands.
Cel froze.
The hands before him were unrecognizable. No longer skeletal frames wrapped in papery skin, no longer trembling with weakness. The gaunt hollows between tendons had filled. Where starvation had carved him into something barely alive, vitality had returned.
Cel turned them over slowly, studying the transformation. Smooth skin replaced what had been translucent and fragile.
His breath quickened.
Fingers curled inward - slowly at first, then tighter - until nails bit into skin.
The pressure was sharp and clear. His hands trembled with it.
When he opened his palms again, half-moon indents marked the flesh, pale crescents that darkened as blood rushed back to fill them.
But these marks were different. Not born of desperation or decay. Born of strength.
Of choice.
His gaze traveled down his arms. Lean muscle moved beneath the surface as he flexed experimentally. Not bulky. Not exaggerated. Just… present. Where bone and sinew had once clung together through sheer stubborn will, now there was structure.
Cel touched his chest.
His ribs no longer jutted against skin like prison bars. His heartbeat pounded against his palm - steady, strong, relentless. Each pulse sent warmth radiating through him, pushing back the cold that had lived in his bones for so long.
He took a breath. Deep. Deeper than he'd managed in months.
His lungs expanded fully. No rasp. No rattle. Just clean, crisp air filling him completely before escaping in a slow exhale.
Again. And again.
Each breath felt like discovery.
Fingers rose to trace the sharp line of his jaw, the planes of cheekbones. The gauntness hadn't vanished entirely - angles remained where softness might have been. But the flesh beneath was firm now. Vital.
Not dying.
He ran his fingers through his hair—
—and stopped.
The texture was wrong.
Too soft. Too smooth. Like silk instead of the tangled, brittle mess he'd grown accustomed to.
Fingers closed around a strand and pulled. It snapped free. Cel brought it close, eyes narrowing.
White.
Pure, luminous white - like freshly fallen snow catching moonlight.
His breath caught.
He grabbed another strand. Another. His fingers combed through hair that fell to his neck in pale waves, each strand gleaming faintly in the mist.
Gone was the dull brown he'd always known. This was something else entirely - a brand of divinity.
His hand dropped to his side.
He remained still, surrounded by pulsing flowers and swirling mist, feeling the energy that coursed through his body. It was quiet - not violent or overwhelming. Just there. Waiting. Coiled like a sleeping serpent that would wake when called.
For the first time in longer than he could remember - longer than the year of captivity, longer than the lifetime of disappointment before it - weight lifted from his shoulders.
No pain dragged at his movements. No exhaustion blurred his thoughts. No sickness hollowed him from within.
He felt… whole.
Cel tilted his head back, gazing up at the moon hanging vast and radiant above him. Its light fell across his upturned face, cool and absolute.
His chest tightened - not with fear, rage or despair.
With something else.
Something that might have been gratitude, if he still remembered how that felt.
His lips moved, barely a whisper, barely more than a breath.
But here, in this sacred place, the words carried.
"Thank you."
For a single moment, the moonlight seemed to brighten.
Cel took a final breath, then stepped forward.
His foot crossed the threshold of the circle.
The air lightened around him as he emerged from the sacred ground.
Selina stood waiting just beyond the flowers, her white robes luminous in the moonlight. Her masked face bore that familiar serene smile.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then she stepped forward, closing the distance between them.
Her arms wrapped around him - gentle but firm, drawing him into an embrace that carried the warmth of genuine welcome.
Cel stiffened at first, unused to such contact. But slowly, hesitantly, he let himself lean into it. Just slightly. Just enough.
Selina's voice came soft against his ear, carrying the weight of something solemn and eternal.
"Welcome, under the wings of the Moon Goddess."