Chapter 18: When the Sky Shatters
The world broke.
Luna felt it before she saw it.
A shift so violent it rattled her bones, a distortion so immense it sent ripples through the very fabric of reality.
She staggered back, her breath catching as the celestial chart beneath her feet fractured, its glowing constellations flickering wildly, some vanishing entirely. The chamber around her groaned, the walls bending, twisting—as if the universe itself was resisting what she had just done.
Ethan was at her side in an instant, grabbing her wrist. "Luna—"
But she couldn't hear him.
Because the stars were screaming.
Not in sound, but in presence. A howling void in the depths of her mind, an overwhelming flood of energy that surged through her veins, searing like wildfire. She felt everything at once—the planets shifting, the sky unraveling, time itself hesitating, unsure whether to move forward or collapse.
She had done something irreversible.
The Celestial Order felt it too.
The members still standing gasped, some collapsing to their knees, clutching their heads as if reality had just turned against them. The very foundation of their belief system—the unchangeable nature of fate—had just been proven false before their eyes.
Lord Castian, however, did not kneel.
He stood tall, still, his golden eyes locked onto Luna as the celestial chaos raged around them.
And then, for the first time since she had met him—
He looked afraid.
Luna's fingers twitched. The power still surged inside her, too much, too vast, too unstable—
Something cracked overhead.
She looked up—
And her heart stopped.
The sky was shattering.
A rupture had formed above the chamber, splitting through the heavens like a jagged wound in the cosmos. Beyond it, the night was no longer the night—it was something else, something shifting, swirling, breaking apart into golden fractures, revealing glimpses of…
Luna's own face.
Dozens of them.
No—thousands.
Every possibility, every future, every Luna Sinclair that could have been or would be—reflected back at her through the fractured sky.
Her past selves. Her future selves.
Some fighting. Some fleeing. Some falling into nothingness.
She had not just changed fate.
She had broken the boundaries of time itself.
Ethan swore, his grip on her tightening. "Luna, we have to go—now."
She could barely think. "I—I don't—"
A roar erupted from the sky.
Something was coming through.
Something ancient.
Something wrong.
A shadow spilled from the rift, swirling like ink, its form shifting, flickering, as if it was not meant to exist in this world. The moment it emerged, everything trembled.
Luna felt it.
The same way she felt the stars.
The same way she had always felt fate itself.
This thing—this being—was never supposed to exist.
And yet, because of her, it did.
Castian took a step forward, his expression unreadable. "You see it now, don't you?"
Luna's pulse pounded. "What… what is that?"
His golden gaze flickered toward the swirling shadow. "That, Starborn, is what happens when you tamper with fate."
Luna's chest tightened. "No."
Castian exhaled, his voice eerily calm. "Yes."
The shadow moved.
The temperature plunged.
The chamber's stone walls cracked.
Ethan yanked Luna backward. "Luna, we can't stay here—"
Too late.
The thing turned toward her.
And it spoke.
Not in words.
Not in sound.
But directly into her soul.
"You do not belong."
The voice was not one.
It was many.
Hundreds, thousands, overlapping, all versions of her.
Luna gasped, her vision blurring.
This thing—this impossible thing—was something the Celestial Order had never accounted for.
Because even they didn't know what happens when fate is rewritten.
And now?
Neither did she.
The ground splintered beneath her feet. The rift widened.
Reality itself was unstable.
Ethan moved. Fast.
He grabbed her, his voice sharp. "We are leaving."
Luna couldn't move.
The shadow was still watching her, still speaking without sound.
"This world is not yours anymore."
The rift tore wider.
And then—
The chamber collapsed.