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Right.
She swallowed.
Yes. Easy. Just open it.
It’s fine. You’re… It will be fine.
Holding it suspended before them, she commanded its fibers apart. Their breaths caught at the sound it made, the stiff crack of dried blood a slap to the face.
The note inside was extensive. Long, neat scrollwork in perfect lines filled the entire page. The letters blurred, and Lunara blinked the tears away. “‘M-my sincerest compliments on your entirely predictable natures…’”
I dropped a crumb and knew that you would eat it, like the animals you are. The tendency has provided endless entertainment as I suffer the banalities of this embryonic celestial body.
Nearly as much, in fact, as your beloved brethren.
Please accept the proffered gifts—one for each week you’ve been digging. A piece of some of those who’ve fallen, as best to keep their memory. The rest…
Remember them in your own way.
I would apologize, but I do not give even the most transient, infinitesimal fuck about your feelings. You must understand:
Eons pass before me as a drop, the epochs of this world mere moments.
Do you truly not recognize how insignificant you are? How fathomless the cosmos are beyond you? Let go your fleeting sorrow. This hold on your own importance. It will not serve you, and it will not matter when all is said and done.
Baldrir and Nyriadne are essential to me in ways you cannot comprehend, and I will do everything in my immeasurable power to both protect them, and ensure I extract what is needed from their precious, dwindling minds. I promise you will die of old age before you find them.
Now, I know you’re wondering how this has come to pass. How—out of all the potential twists and turns you might have taken—you could possibly be standing here, in this exact spot, holding the proof of my omniscience. To that, I say:
I see with a sight that would stagger you.
No whimper, no sigh, that mine eyes are blinded to.
I see so you can see—see what’s right in front of you.
And the Moonweaver topples in three, two…
There was nothing more dreadful than the impact of her hands and knees hitting the floor, the parchment flitting down to settle perfectly in front of her face. Nothing more appalling than proving them right. Than seeing the final words on the page.
Are you frightened yet, Lunara?
She was going to be sick.
“Deep breaths.” Fern’s hand landed on her back, rubbing in soothing circles. “That’s it. In and out.”
‘I see so you can see…’
Lunara gagged, trying to suck in air.
A flash of the day she discovered Brand was her mate, that same fucking sentence echoing in her mind as Endellion tried to convince her to stay and accept him. Tried to warn her.
‘See what’s right in front of you.’
Weeping moons.
Endellion hadn’t spoken to Lunara in weeks, damn her, but surely this wasn’t her handiwork, despite the similarities. It couldn’t be.
She wanted to scream into the void and demand answers for the thousandth time since finding Brand, but she knew it was pointless. Endellion only spoke when she saw fit to do so, and rarely when it was actually convenient.
