Bound by Moonlight and Magic The trees screamed. Not with mouths or voices, but with memory—shredding as the First Listener passed through them. Where it stepped, the weave decayed. Threads unspooled from the fabric of reality like veins from a corpse. The light dimmed. The sky warped. Kael planted his feet at the edge of the ruined grove, sword raised. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to take the girl—the spark of what once was—and flee. But he had sworn. To her. To the world. To the woman who was now becoming something more. Behind him, the girl moved like a flame unfurling in slow motion. Her bare feet didn't touch the earth—they hovered just above it, Threads circling her wrists and neck like sentient jewelry, whispering truths and futures with every breath she took. “I rem

