The night Valoria's wards failed, the moon was full.
Not bright—strained.
Alisha felt it before the alarms sounded.
She woke with a sharp intake of breath, her heart racing as if she had been pulled abruptly from a dream she couldn't remember. The air in her chamber hummed faintly, charged and unsettled. Her Radiance stirred beneath her skin, restless, unfocused.
Something was wrong.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood just as the first tremor rolled through the palace. It wasn't strong enough to knock her off balance, but it rattled the windows, sending thin cracks through the glass like spiderwebs.
Then the bells rang.
Low. Urgent. Wrong.
Alisha was already moving, throwing on her cloak as another wave of pressure surged through the air. This time, it wasn't just light she felt—but shadow, slipping through gaps that should not have existed.
The wards.
They were bending.
She ran.
Corridors blurred past as guards and attendants spilled into the halls, panic flashing across their faces. The silver runes etched into the walls flickered erratically, light sputtering as dark threads crawled through them like veins.
"This isn't an attack," Rowan's voice echoed through her memory.It's a response.
She reached the outer terrace just as the sky fractured.
Above Valoria, the moon dimmed—not eclipsed, but strained, as though something invisible pressed against it from the other side. A deep, resonant hum filled the air, vibrating through stone, bone, and blood alike.
Rowan stood near the ward pillar, staff planted firmly against the ground, his expression grim.
"You felt it," he said as she approached.
"Yes," Alisha replied. "It's not breaking."
"No," Rowan agreed. "It's adjusting."
Another tremor struck, stronger this time. Cracks spread across the ward pillar, light and shadow twisting together chaotically.
Caelan arrived moments later, sword already drawn, eyes sharp. "Scouts report shadow manifestations at the outer districts. Not breaches—leaks."
Alisha clenched her fists. "Because of me."
Rowan didn't deny it. "Because the system this world was built on no longer knows how to categorize you."
The truth settled heavily in her chest.
She had become an anomaly.
The ground shuddered again, and this time, something tore.
A section of the ward collapsed inward, light imploding rather than exploding. From the rupture, shadow poured—not violently, but deliberately, as if following a path that had been prepared long ago.
Gasps echoed around them.
"That's not random," Caelan said. "It's aimed."
Alisha followed the flow instinctively—and felt her breath catch.
It was moving toward the old observatory.
Toward him.
"I have to go," she said.
Rowan turned sharply. "No. This is exactly what he wants."
"And if I don't?" she shot back. "The wards will keep tearing themselves apart trying to correct me."
Caelan stepped closer. "Then let us go with you."
Alisha shook her head. "This isn't a battle. It's a reckoning."
Before either of them could stop her, she turned and ran.
The observatory was already half-ruined when she arrived.
Moonlight fractured through broken domes, scattering across shattered star maps etched into the stone floor. The air here felt different—quiet, suspended, as if the world itself hesitated to intrude.
He stood at the center of it all.
"You felt it," he said calmly, without turning. "The wards finally reached their limit."
Alisha stopped a few steps away. "You knew this would happen."
"Yes."
Her voice trembled with restrained anger. "And you let it."
He turned to face her then, his expression grave. "Because it was inevitable. The world has been breaking itself to preserve a lie."
She swallowed hard. "People could die."
"They already have," he replied quietly. "Just slowly enough to be called peace."
The moon above flickered violently, light straining against unseen resistance.
Alisha pressed a hand to her chest, feeling both Radiance and shadow respond at once. "Then tell me how to stop it."
He studied her for a long moment.
"You can't," he said. "Not without choosing."
Her heart pounded. "Choosing what?"
"Whether the world bends to preserve balance… or breaks so something new can exist."
The observatory shook as another ward collapsed somewhere in the city.
Far away, a presence stirred—vast, ancient, amused.
The Shadow King had felt it too.
"You're asking me to gamble with everything," Alisha whispered.
He stepped closer, stopping just short of touching her. "I'm asking you to decide whether your mother's sacrifice was an ending—or a delay."
Tears burned behind her eyes. "And if I refuse?"
"Then the world will decide for you," he said gently.
The moon dimmed further.
Alisha closed her eyes.
For the first time, she did not reach for the moon.
She reached inward—to the place where light and shadow met.
And the world held its breath.