I opened my mouth to answer the decree, to give my choice that would unmake or remake everything.
But before words could form, I heard her.
Luna.
Not the broken woman kneeling in the Moon Court. Not the monstrous goddess who'd thrown annihilation. Something else. Something deeper.
Her voice came from the collapsing heavens themselves. From the dying stars. From the void that was spreading as the Veil dissolved. The sound carried texture—ancient and crystalline, like wind through shattered glass, like the last breath of something once magnificent.
"Finish what I began."
The words echoed through cosmic space, carried on stellar wind that tasted of ozone and ash and the metallic tang of dying magic.
"Please. I tried to create order from chaos. Structure from suffering. Meaning from loss. And I failed. Made cruelty instead of teaching. Made prison instead of school."
