Bound By Moonlight to My Mates (by Sofange Daye) novel Chapter 109

We’ve been walking since dawn, and I can still taste salt on my tongue. The sea behind us roars its disapproval, as if it knows what I’m planning. The path inland is nothing more than a scar carved through the cliffs.

I don’t look back.

River walks a few paces ahead, keeping a steady pace. The sun catches in his dark hair, the edges still damp from the morning tide. He doesn’t ask where we’re going anymore. He just follows my commands.

The man doesn’t complain. He doesn’t pry, and he doesn’t thank me, either. And somehow, that bothers me more than it should.

“Once we reach the next city,” I say finally, “you’re on your own.”

He glances back. “I assumed as much.”

“Good. Then we understand each other.”

He nods once and keeps walking.

I tell myself that’s what I want, a clean separation. But something about his easy acceptance grates against me, like sand under my skin. He’s supposed to beg. Or argue. Or care that I am leaving him behind.

Instead, he just keeps moving.

By midday, the cliffs give way to marshland. The air grows heavy with humidity. The horizon blurs with mist that rises from the ground.

We crest a slight rise, and there it is, sprawled beneath a shroud of fog and water. The drowned city.

Only the tallest towers remain above the surface, leaning and half–consumed by vines. The rest lies silent beneath the water’s surface, a graveyard of glass and stone.

I stop walking.

River follows my gaze. “You’ve seen this place before.”

“Yes.” My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.

“What happened here?”

I swallow hard. “I did.”

***

Centuries ago, this was a living city, bright and loud, full of songs that carried out over the water. I remember

the smell of citrus and smoke, the laughter of children running through open markets. I remember the day I was called upon to save it.

Zealots had cornered one of my sisters here, Vessra, the Daughter of Knowledge. They wanted her power, her mind, her secrets. I came to her aid too late.

The zealots had already poisoned the wells, and their priests were calling down holy fire.

So I called the sea instead. It rose at my command, and I drowned them all. The zealots. The soldiers. The innocents. Even the sister I came to save.

Vessra’s final scream still echoes in the tide sometimes, a reminder that I wasn’t enough.

“Seren?” River’s voice cuts through the memory.

I blink the vision away. “It’s nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing.”

I glare at him, but his gaze doesn’t flinch. He is too calm and patient, and it is annoying.

“You can’t fix what’s broken,” I say. “Especially when you’re the one who shattered it.”

“Maybe not,” he says softly. “But you can still pick up the pieces.”

I snort. “Spoken like someone who’s never drowned a city.”

He shrugs, unoffended. “Spoken like someone who’s watched the tide take everything and still comes back to the shore.”

I hate that he makes sense.

The mist rolls thicker around us, curling against my legs. The air hums faintly, charged. Something ancient stirs beneath the water.

“Don’t move,” I whisper.

River freezes. “What is it?”

“Listen.”

The wind has gone still, even it is holding its breath. Then, from somewhere deep below the surface, a voice

rises.

“Little sister.”

My blood runs cold.

“Vessra,” I breathe.

The voice ripples through the mist like a sigh.

“You would leave him behind. You would make the same mistake again.”

I turn toward the sound, searching the water’s surface for her reflection. For a heartbeat, I see her. Her hair is white as foam, her eyes pale as moonlight, standing where no one should stand.

“Show yourself,” I whisper.

“So was Aelara once.”

“Maybe you have.”

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify