Chapter Thirty-Two The Last Moonrise

The moon hung heavy in the sky, a swollen eye watching over the battlefield that waited beneath its pale stare. No stars. No wind. Just a silence so deep it felt sacred, as though the world itself held its breath.

Raina stood at the highest tower of the mansion, her silhouette etched in silver light. The mark on her skin burned brighter than ever veins of fire beneath her flesh. Below, the courtyard buzzed with the final preparations for war. Spells were whispered. Blades blessed. Armor fastened not with pride, but necessity.

She didn't blink.

This was the end.

Not of the world but of the version she had always feared becoming.

A knock broke her trance.

Lucien entered without waiting for permission. His presence filled the space quiet, magnetic, dangerous even now, and yet wholly hers. He crossed to her, wordless, and wrapped his arms around her from behind.

"I thought you were resting," she murmured.

"I couldn't sleep. Not with what's coming."

Raina leaned into him. "Do you feel it too? The shift?"

Lucien nodded. "The veil isn't just thinning anymore. It's breaking. Cracks everywhere. Something's trying to push through."

She turned in his arms to face him fully. His eyes were tired, but determined. His body, bruised and bandaged, was still a weapon in waiting.

"If we don't win tonight…" she began.

"There is no 'if', Raina," he cut in. "We either win, or we become the myth."

Raina searched his face for fear. There was none. Only devotion and the echo of something more ancient than either of them.

She reached up and cupped his face. "Then let's end it with fire."

The battlefield stretched out like a graveyard waiting for names.

Raina stood at the front, Maeva and Elias flanking her. Behind them, warriors of the new order some reborn, others barely healed stood shoulder to shoulder. Witches. Shifters. Mortals and immortals alike. All drawn by one promise:

This ends tonight.

A horn blew in the distance.

The earth shuddered.

And from the shadows spilled the enemy.

The Coven's remnants had multiplied hundreds of shadowbeasts surged across the field, flanked by skeletal riders, harpies, wraiths. Aeris may have fallen, but something darker had taken her place. A figure now emerged from the fog.

Cloaked in moonfire and shadow.

A woman.

Tall. Ageless. Drenched in power.

Her face mirrored Raina's.

Lucien cursed softly under his breath. "Is that…?"

"It's her," Raina confirmed, her voice low. "The First Huntress. The one buried in my blood."

The ancestral soul. The original fire. Now risen.

The First didn't speak. She raised a hand—and the sky cracked.

Bolts of inverted lightning arced across the clouds. The battlefield was bathed in silver and shadow. Raina's mark pulsed in answer.

Then the world erupted.

Screams. Metal. Fire. Magic.

Raina ran forward, blade drawn, and the army followed. Her feet barely touched the earth as she launched herself into the heart of the battle. Lucien transformed mid-leap, his beast form massive and glowing with silver fire. He tore through enemies with brutal grace, never far from her side.

Maeva chanted spells that turned night into flame. Elias wielded the winds themselves, cutting down enemies like blades of grass.

But the First moved through the chaos untouched part smoke, part goddess.

Raina met her at the center of the chaos.

Their blades clashed with a sound like thunder splitting bone.

"You carry my blood, girl," the First said. Her voice was not one it was hundreds. Echoes of past lives. "But you are not me."

"I never wanted to be you," Raina spat, driving her sword forward. "I came to end you."

The First laughed cold, hollow. "End me? I am you. Every death, every choice, every love, every betrayal. I am the cost you refused to pay."

They clashed again.

Magic detonated around them. Lucien fought his way toward her, but the ground split separating him from the battle's core.

"Raina!" he roared, trying to jump the chasm.

She shook her head. "This is mine."

Time bent.

The battle faded into mist.

Raina and the First now stood in a void lit by nothing but their marks. It wasn't just a duel it was a reckoning of souls.

"You want to bury me?" the First hissed, stalking forward. "I built this legacy. I wore the crown before you were dust."

"And you corrupted it," Raina countered. "You let your power rot you from within. You forgot why we fought."

The First's face twisted with rage. "I was the only one willing to pay the price."

"And I'm the one who came to rewrite it."

Raina raised her hands not to fight, but to open herself.

The mark on her body glowed so brightly the shadows hissed and recoiled.

She spoke the ancient words of her bloodline. Words forbidden. Words only a Huntress could know.

"I reclaim my name. I reclaim the bond. I do not fear my origin I redeem it."

The First lunged.

Raina didn't flinch.

She caught the blade in her palm.

Let it pierce.

And still she stood.

"I choose love," she whispered. "Even if it breaks me."

The First froze.

Power rippled.

And then like glass hit with a hammer her form fractured.

She screamed.

The void cracked.

Light poured in.

Raina awoke on the battlefield.

Lucien was above her, shaking. "Raina. Raina, please "

She gasped, lungs dragging in breath like it was her first.

"I'm here," she rasped.

Around them, the enemy forces were falling some fading to ash, others fleeing. The First was gone.

Destroyed?

Or finally at peace?

She didn't know.

But she felt the shift.

The bond no longer burned.

It radiated.

She rose to her feet.

Maeva fell to her knees in exhaustion. Elias stood nearby, face smeared with blood and ash.

They had won.

But not without cost.

Behind them, the mansion burned its roof caved in, smoke curling into the dawn sky.

Raina turned to Lucien. "We're still standing."

He nodded, jaw clenched, emotion brimming behind his eyes. "Barely."

"We build again," she whispered.

Lucien took her hand.

And this time,

when the sun rose It rose on a new world.