To ruin an Omega

Chapter 225: Honored one

FIA

The darkness should have been final. It should have been the end of everything. But slowly and impossibly, color bled back into my world.

I opened my eyes to reeds.

They stretched across the entire space, tall and golden, swaying in a breeze I couldn’t feel. The sky above me was impossible. A blanket of colors that shifted and moved like liquid silk. Purples bled into deep blues, then brightened to coral and amber. And scattered across that shifting firmament were moons. All the phases at once. Crescent and full, waxing and waning, hanging suspended like jewels against that painted sky.

I pushed myself up. My hands sank into soft earth. No pain shot through my body. No glass jutted from my throat. I touched my neck with trembling fingers and found smooth, unbroken skin.

Was this the afterlife?

The thought hit me like a physical blow. A pang started to form in my chest, spreading outward until it felt like my ribs might crack from the pressure. If I died, what would Cian feel? The question twisted something deep inside me. He would hate himself. He would hate that he didn’t follow me despite wanting to. That hurt worse than any wound. Worse than the memory of glass tearing through flesh, worse than the road peeling my skin away in strips.

“Fancy meeting you here.” Someone said.

That made me spin around.

A woman stood among the reeds. She wore white robes that seemed to glow with their own light, fabric that moved like water even though there was no wind. A crown sat on her head, delicate and fierce at once. A crescent moon wrought in silver that caught the light from the impossible sky above. Her hair was silvery white, long and curly, reaching all the way to her hips. It moved around her like it was alive, each strand catching light and throwing it back in soft gleams.

Her skin was a beautiful mix of tones, like someone had blended sunlight, the earth and moonbeam into flesh. And her eyes held warmth. Not the kind you find in fire but the kind you find in summer nights, in gentle hands, in things that feel like home even when you’ve never been there before.

I didn’t know her. I had never seen her face. But when she moved closer, when her bare feet disturbed the reeds and sent them whispering against each other, I felt like I had known her my entire life.

“I know you,” I said. The words came out soft, almost a question.

“Of course you do.” Her voice was strange. Not male or female but something beyond both. It resonated in my chest, in my bones, like it was speaking directly to something deeper than my ears could reach. She smiled and the expression transformed her face into something almost blinding. “I have known you all your life. I know all my children.”

My breath caught.

The pieces fell into place all at once. The crown. The moons scattered across the sky. The way she seemed to exist slightly outside of reality itself, like she was more real than everything around her.

“Lady Selene.”

I dropped to my knees. The earth was soft beneath me but I barely felt it. I bowed my head, pressing my forehead toward the ground. My heart hammered against my ribs. The Moon Goddess. I was in the presence of the Moon Goddess herself.

“Please.” Her voice came closer. “There is no need for that.”

I lifted my head slowly. She stood right in front of me now, close enough to touch. The light from her robes cast everything in soft white.

“That means I’m truly dead,” I said. My voice sounded hollow. Empty. “Doesn’t it?”

“No.” Selene tilted her head slightly. “Not yet. Not if you don’t want to stay.”

“What does that mean?”

Instead of answering, she reached out. Her hand was elegant, fingers long and graceful. She pointed to my chest. Right where my heart would be.

“You are a fascinating specimen.” Her eyes met mine and I saw galaxies in them. Actual galaxies, spinning, colliding and being born. “It is rare for an abomination of nature and divinity to catch my eye. But you did. You have for a long time now. So I stayed by you and watched.”

She turned away from me. Her hand reached out and touched the reeds. They bent away from her fingers like they were afraid. Or maybe in awe. Then she grabbed a handful and pulled.

The reeds tore apart like fabric.

Reality ripped open and suddenly we were somewhere else. The golden field was gone. Instead, I saw twisted metal and smoke. Flames licking at the wreckage of two cars. And there, on the road, was my body.

I looked dead. Blood pooled beneath me, dark and thick. My skin was pale, almost gray. Glass still jutted from my throat. But Garrett was there. He was up, moving, his uniform jacket pressed hard against my neck. His hands were soaked red. His face was twisted with desperation.

“You aren’t dead yet,” Selene said beside me. “So you can still go back. But only if you want to.”

I stared at my broken body. At Garrett frantically trying to stop the bleeding. At the way my chest barely moved at all with each—if you could even call it shallow— breath.

“I’m not sure how,” I said.

“I’m surprised you think that.” Selene’s voice carried something like amusement. “It is in your genes after all.”

I turned to look at her. “What?”

“The way your nose is sensitive.” She gestured gracefully, like she was pointing to things I couldn’t see. “Your skill with poison. How you managed to break the power of alchemy because of your connection to the source.”

My mind raced. The source? I thought about that night with the Grand Luna. When I had fed her the supposed cure we made.

“Are you saying I actually did help the Grand Luna that time? I wasn’t so sure it was us.”

“Us? No, you did.” Selene moved closer to the scene. Her robes didn’t disturb the smoke. She existed separately from it, like she was watching through glass. “And there is so much more you can do. I’m sure you feel it much more now.”

She laughed. The sound was like bells and thunder at once. “They thought they could create like we the gods do. One of their twisted creations even tried to take you out right now.” Her expression shifted. The warmth was still there but something harder edged it. Something ancient, something powerful and not to be tested. “But I, Selene, will not be mocked. They want the age of legends back. Well. It is back now.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Lady Selene.”

“I know.” She turned to face me fully. “I’m not allowed to reveal much. Even the gods have their rules. But know this, child. There is power within you. Heaven, you called me here.” She stepped closer until she was right in front of me. Her hand cupped my face with impossible gentleness. “So I will tell you this much. You are favored by me. Enjoy being loved by a god.”

She leaned in and then pressed a kiss to my cheek.

Her lips were warm. The sensation spread from that point of contact through my entire being, like sunlight flooding a dark room. Something inside me shifted. No. More like unlocked. I felt it wake up, whatever it was, stretching after a long sleep.

When she pulled back, I grabbed her arm without thinking. “Does that mean you’ll help me back into my body?”

Selene smiled. “Your heart still beats. Strengthen it.”

Then she was gone.

One moment she stood in front of me, solid and real. The next, there was only smoke and flames and the wreckage of the accident.

“Wait,” I said to the empty air.

Nothing answered.

I turned back to the scene. Garrett was still working frantically. His lips moved and I strained to hear.

“Stay with me, Luna Fia. Please.” His voice cracked. He looked around desperately, patting down his pockets. Looking for his phone probably. But I remembered seeing mine float away toward that figure. Toward the monster who had done this. She probably took his too.

I moved closer to my body. It looked so fragile. So broken. Blood still seeped from around Garrett’s makeshift bandage. My chest barely rose and fell in tiny, irregular movements.

Could I even make it?

Then I heard it.

A hum. Low and resonant, like the earth itself was singing. I looked down at my hands and froze.

They were glowing.

A curious blue light emanated from my palms, spreading up my wrists. It pulsed in time with something. A rhythm I couldn’t quite place. Then I realized it matched my heartbeat. The one still struggling in my broken body.

“What the hell,” I whispered.

But even as I said it, something inside me knew. It was like muscle memory I’d never formed. Knowledge I’d never learned but somehow possessed anyway. My hands knew what to do even if my mind didn’t understand.

I knelt beside my body. The blood didn’t touch me. Nothing in this half-state touched me except what I wanted it to. I reached out with those glowing hands and pressed them to my chest. Right over my heart.

The glow intensified immediately.

It spread from my hands into my body, racing through veins and arteries like liquid light. I felt it in a way I couldn’t explain. Felt it strengthen what was weak, shore up what was failing. My heart responded. The rhythm grew stronger and more steady.

The light grew brighter and brighter until I couldn’t see anything else. It consumed everything. The wreckage, Garrett, the night sky. There was only blue light, brilliant and blinding, and the feeling of my heart remembering how to beat.

Then the light swallowed me whole.