Chapter 17: The Chains That Bind

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Chapter 17: The Chains That Bind

Aetheria Nyx Lunaris Solis stood within the sacred temple of the Moon, an ethereal sanctuary carved from silver and moonstone, untouched by time or mortal hands. It was a place where only she could walk, where even the gods hesitated to step. The air hummed with ancient power, the soft glow of celestial inscriptions lining the temple walls casting shifting patterns of silver light across her pale skin.

Before her, suspended in the void-like center of the temple, was the Mirror of Endless Night. A relic not made by gods or demons, but something far older, crafted in the lost era when divinity and mortality walked hand in hand. It did not reflect the world around it. Instead, it revealed the unseen. The forbidden.

It revealed him.

Her violet eyes, speckled with silver like the endless cosmos, remained locked onto the mirror's abyssal surface. Nothing moved. No image formed. Just endless, consuming darkness.

Her fingers curled. It should not be empty.

Aetheria exhaled, her breath steady yet laced with something unspoken. Hope? No. She had long since buried hope beneath the weight of reality. Hope was for fools who waited for fate to hand them mercy. She was no fool.

But still, she whispered his name.

"…Leonhardt."

For a fleeting moment, the darkness within the mirror trembled.

Aetheria did not move, did not blink. Her eyes burned into the abyss, willing it to answer her. To show her something—anything.

But as quickly as it had stirred, the mirror fell still once more.

Silence.

A deep, suffocating silence.

Aetheria closed her eyes. She had been through this cycle too many times before. The whispers of power, the flickers of connection, the faintest echoes of his existence reaching out—and then, nothing. It was as if something, someone, was deliberately keeping them apart.

No.

Aetheria clenched her jaw, her hands tightening at her sides. Not someone. The seal.

The very thing that had imprisoned them both, tearing them from each other's grasp, forcing them into separate existences—yet never allowing them to truly forget.

She turned away, her steps slow but deliberate as she left the mirror behind. I will not let this be our fate.

The vast balcony stretched before her, offering a view of the endless night sky. Beneath her, the world slept. Kingdoms, empires, cities—they all existed under the same sky, under the same silent rule. Her rule.

She had never asked to be a ruler. The title had been given to her by the world, whispered in reverence, in fear. The Ruler of Night. The Queen of the Moon. The Night's Queen.

In the empire where he lived, they knew her name well. Children were raised on stories of the Night's Queen, the celestial force that punished those who dared to betray the Sun God's light. Some prayed to her, believing her to be a silent guardian of justice. Others trembled at the mere mention of her name, fearing her judgment.

But none of them truly knew her.

None of them knew that she was, at this very moment, standing beneath the same sky as them, staring at the same moon, longing for something beyond even her own dominion.

Aetheria lifted a hand, and the night itself seemed to answer. The stars pulsed, the moonlight bending toward her, wrapping around her as though it, too, longed for her touch.

She was the daughter of the Sun, and yet, the Moon had always belonged to her.

She had spent her entire life seeking strength, pushing beyond the limits of what even demigods could achieve. She had delved into the forbidden, unraveled the secrets of lost civilizations, walked the path that no other being dared to tread.

And yet, even now, she was not strong enough.

Not yet.

But soon.

She would shatter the chains that bound them. She would tear apart the very foundation of the seal. She did not care if it meant defying the will of the gods themselves.

Because he was waiting.

Because she could feel him, struggling, fighting, searching—just as she was.

This was not just her battle. It was theirs.

Aetheria took a slow breath, her fingers brushing against the hilt of the blade at her hip—a weapon forged in the light of the stars, crafted for only one purpose.

She had spent lifetimes preparing for this moment. And now, the world was inching closer to the day when it would witness what true divine will looked like.

When that day came—

The world would tremble.