The Descent Begins
The sky was bruised with stormlight—slate clouds rolling above the Vale Estate like the gods were holding their breath.
Emma stood in the antechamber beneath the council hall, dressed in trial garments that barely shielded her from the cold. Thin fabric clung to her skin, a dark slate-gray meant to signify neutrality—no house, no title, no power.
A statement.
A challenge.
A mockery.
The ceremonial blade with her mother's name carved into it hung from her hip. Her fingers kept drifting to it. Not for comfort—just to feel something solid. Real. Hers.
The doors opened with a thud, and Zane stepped in. He didn't speak right away, just eyed her from head to toe.
"You look like a rebellion," he said finally, smirking. "Fitting."
Emma arched a brow. "And you look like a man who's not sure he wants to walk me to the gates."
Zane tilted his head, eyes glinting. "I'm not. But Sebastian ordered it. And I do like to watch history unfold."
She stepped past him. "Then let's make history bleed."
The walk through the underground passage was silent, save for the tap of her bare feet against the stone and the echo of flickering torchlight.
Halfway through, another figure appeared.
A woman in crimson robes with a veil covering her face.
Zane tensed. "High Seer Lysandra," he murmured.
Emma had heard the name once—rumors of a prophet who served the Vale bloodline, bound not by loyalty but by curse.
"Luna Emma," Lysandra said, voice melodic, as if dipped in smoke. "You've stirred more than you know."
Emma didn't stop. "Everyone keeps saying that. Maybe they should've thought before poking the girl they buried."
Lysandra stepped into her path. "Do not mistake the Cerberus Grounds for a fairytale proving ground. It's not your bloodline that will protect you there."
Emma's gaze sharpened. "Then what will?"
The Seer didn't answer. She reached up, lifting her veil just enough for Emma to see what lay beneath.
Her eyes—milky white and cracked like ancient porcelain. And her lips, stained black.
Lysandra leaned in and whispered:
"Only the monster inside you."
Then she was gone.
Zane exhaled like he'd been holding his breath the entire time. "She doesn't talk to just anyone."
Emma didn't respond. She didn't need to.
The monsters were already awake.
The gates to the Cerberus Grounds stood twenty feet tall, rusted iron twisted with ancient markings—protective glyphs and sealing runes.
A crowd had gathered.
Council elders, Alpha representatives, mistresses, guards. Even the press—cameras discreetly watching through enchanted glass.
Celeste stood near the back, elegant and cold, wearing funeral black.
Sebastian leaned against a stone pillar, arms folded. Watching.
Emma stepped to the edge of the gates.
Elder Alric raised his voice. "Trial of Loyalty begins at the last breath of twilight. The challenger shall walk alone into the Cerberus Grounds. If she survives until dawn, her Luna title shall be earned."
A hush fell.
Sebastian stepped forward then, slowly, his eyes never leaving Emma's.
He spoke only loud enough for her to hear.
"I still think you'll die."
Emma tilted her head. "You hope I will."
A smirk curved his lips. "I never hope. I plan."
She turned toward the gate. "Then plan to choke on disappointment."
The gate groaned open, the magic in its hinges older than most names present.
And Emma stepped into the dark.
The Cerberus Grounds weren't just a place.
They were a wound—stitched shut by time, still bleeding in silence.
The ancient forest loomed ahead of Emma like a waiting mouth, its branches twisted into claws, its ground covered in ash and bone-colored moss. Fog moved unnaturally—alive, sentient—coiling around her boots as if testing her, tasting her. Behind her, the grand arch of stone that marked the border still stood, carved with the three snarling wolf heads of Cerberus... but it felt a lifetime away.
She stepped past it.
And everything changed.
The temperature dropped. The air turned heavy, pressing into her chest. Even the birdsong she'd heard on the wind outside had vanished. Here, not even insects dared to buzz.
Zane's voice had echoed before she crossed:
"Survive until dawn. That's all you need to do."
He didn't say how long the night would feel. Or what waited in the dark.
Emma's footsteps crunched on brittle leaves as she moved deeper, each sound too loud in the aching quiet. She kept her shoulders square, head high—until the fog crept higher, wrapping around her calves, then her thighs like skeletal hands.
The forest whispered her name.
Not aloud.
Inside her mind.
She stopped.
"Emma..."
It wasn't the voice of a stranger.
It was her mother.
Her real mother—the one who used to hum lullabies on stormy nights, the one with soft hands and a broken smile. A memory long buried, ripped open.
"Come home," the voice said, soft as silk over a knife.
Emma spun around.
There was no one.
Only trees.
Only fog.
Only the ache in her chest.
She breathed deeply and kept walking. Her boots left no prints now. The fog swallowed them before she could mark the ground.
The innocent child from the past
The first hallucination—or was it?—came less than an hour in.
She saw a child curled beneath a fallen tree.
Tiny, shivering. Blood trickling down her temple.
She saw her first just beyond a gnarled, lightning-struck tree.
A little girl, no older than six or seven, curled up under the rotted arch of roots, clutching her knees to her chest. Pale skin smudged with dirt, blood crusted at the corner of her temple. A torn stuffed wolf lay beside her, its button eye missing.
Emma's breath caught.
She didn't need to ask who the child was.
She remembered that night.
She hadn't thought of it in years.
The storm. The screaming. The slap that came so fast her head hit the table's edge. The copper taste of blood. And then—running. Always running. Hiding in the woods for hours, cold and barefoot, waiting for someone—anyone—to come find her.
But no one ever did.
The little girl looked up slowly, eyes hollow and too aware.
"You left me here," she said.
Emma took a trembling step forward.
"I didn't know how to help you... I didn't know how to protect us."
The girl tilted her head, her voice calm, cruel in its innocence.
"You knew how to survive. That's what you chose. Not me. Not softness. Not love."
Emma's lips parted. "I had no choice—"
"You did," the girl snapped, standing now. "You chose silence. You chose obedience. You chose to pretend you weren't bleeding."
Tears welled in Emma's eyes. "I was a child."
"So was I," the little girl whispered.
A gust of wind rushed through the trees. The fog thickened, swirling around the child's feet, rising like smoke.
"I used to wait," the girl said, stepping closer. "Every night, I thought maybe tonight she'll come back for me. Maybe she'll choose me this time instead of hiding behind walls, or men, or pride."
Emma's chest clenched. Her hands shook. "I didn't know how—"
"You still don't."
And just like that, the girl knelt again beneath the tree and slowly turned to stone—starting at her feet, crawling up her tiny body, freezing her in place with wide, cracked eyes and outstretched arms that would never be held.
Emma fell to her knees.
Silent sobs tore through her, raw and unrestrained.
She pressed her hand to the cold statue's face. The cheek was smooth. Fragile. Real.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
The fog seemed to pause—listening.
"I'm so sorry."
And then, from deep within the woods, a lullaby began. The same one her mother used to hum when she thought Emma was asleep. Sweet and eerie. Off-key.
But Emma didn't move.
She stayed with that little stone girl until the first howl cut through the silence.
She turned back and then the fog swallowed the girl whole in front of her like it never exist.