POV: Soraya
Sleep rarely comes easily in Ashra, but that night, exhaustion dragged me under like sinking sand. My mind drifted in fragments—shadows, whispers, flickers of light—until everything snapped into clarity so bright it hurt.
I stood barefoot on a field of white dunes.
No wind. No sound. Just an endless ocean of pale sand glowing under a silver moon.
My breath caught in my throat. I knew this place.
My childhood dreams used to bring me here, before fear and exile tainted everything I touched. Before my mother died in front of me. Before Zarek claimed my fate like I was something to own rather than a child to protect.
A soft crunch of sand behind me made my heart stutter.
I turned.
My breath vanished.
“Mother?”
She stood exactly as I remembered—hair like black silk, eyes like nightwater, warm and sad and proud all at once. She wore the white ceremonial cloak of the Zehrael tribe, embroidered with moon symbols, the kind she hid from my father for years.
Her smile trembled. “My soraya lune.”
I stumbled forward, knees weak. “How—? You’re gone. I watched—”
She lifted her hand, brushing a tear from my cheek. Warm. Real.
“As long as the moon remembers us,” she whispered, “nothing is ever truly gone.”
I shook, reaching for her again, terrified she’d dissolve like smoke. But she stayed. Solid. Comforting in a way I had almost forgotten existed.
“Why am I dreaming this?” I whispered. “Why now?”
Her expression dimmed. “Because the desert turns toward war. And you stand at its center.”
I swallowed hard. “I never asked for that.”
“Neither did I,” she said softly. “Neither does anyone chosen by the moon.”
Chosen.
The word stung.
“I can’t be what they need,” I said. “Ashra fears me. Zarek wants to control me. Raevan—” My voice cracked helplessly. “I don’t even know what he wants.”
Her eyes softened. “Your heart speaks louder than your words.”
“I’m lost,” I whispered. “Everything I do hurts someone. I don’t know how to control my wolf. I don’t know why my powers keep growing. I don’t know why the moon marked me at all.”
My mother stepped closer, her thumbs brushing my face the way she used to when I woke from nightmares as a child.
“You were born under the brightest lunar eclipse in a century,” she said. “Born with the Zehrael moon-mark. Born with gifts that frightened the desert clans, even before they saw them.”
My stomach dropped. “What gifts?”
Her hands lowered to my shoulders. “You are the key to ending the desert war, Soraya.”
The dunes around us trembled slightly, as if responding to her words.
“Ashra and Saren cannot defeat each other by force,” she continued. “The war will not end with blades or claws. It ends with you.”
A cold wind cut through the dream suddenly. The moon flickered—once, twice—like a dying lantern.
“Mother?” I stepped closer. “What does that mean? Tell me how. Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
Her outline blurred around the edges. Her voice fell like a whisper carried by wind. “You must learn. You must awaken. You must survive long enough to become—”
“Become what?!” I shouted as the dunes collapsed inward.
But she was fading fast. Her final words barely reached me.
“—become yourself.”
The world shattered.
I jolted awake with a gasp.
The room was dark except for a flickering oil lamp. Sweat clung to my skin. My pulse thundered against my ribs. My hands glowed faintly—silver threads of moonlight flickering beneath the skin.
Not again.
I pressed my palms against my chest, forcing the light to dim. It faded slowly, reluctantly.
A knock made me flinch.
“Soraya?” Vienne’s soft voice filtered through the door. “Are you awake?”
No point pretending otherwise.
“Yes,” I whispered.
She stepped in, hair messy from sleep, tunic crooked, face worried. “You were talking in your sleep. Loudly.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. “It was my mother.”
Vienne’s eyes widened. “Your… mother?”
I nodded, swallowing hard. “She spoke to me. It felt real. Not like a normal dream.”
Vienne sat beside me on the bed, waiting quietly, letting me find my words.
“She said I’m the key to ending the desert war,” I said. “Those exact words.”
Vienne exhaled slowly. “That’s… a lot.”
“No advice?” I asked, half-laughing, half-begging.
She laughed softly too—but her eyes were gentle. “Soraya, I’m a healer and a soldier. Not a seer. Not a Zehrael. I can’t tell you why your mother chose to speak now. I can’t tell you what ending a war looks like for someone like you.”
I lowered my head.
“But,” she added, lifting my chin, “I can tell you this: the moon-mark is never random.”
My chest tightened.
“And you aren’t alone,” she said. “You have me. You have Kaide. And whether you want to admit it or not… you have Raevan.”
Those words struck deeper than she knew.
I whispered, “The whole desert feels like it’s closing in.”
Vienne took my hands carefully, eyeing the faint silver glow beneath the skin. “Then we’ll push back.”
I blinked at her.
She smiled softly. “Tomorrow morning, we start meditation training again. You need control. And you need strength. If your mother believes your destiny is bigger than all this chaos… then we need to make sure you survive long enough to fulfill it.”
I let out a shaky laugh. “No pressure then.”
Vienne squeezed my hands. “Soraya. Whatever your destiny is… you won’t face it alone.”
For the first time in days, something warm pushed through the fear in my chest.
Not hope. Not confidence.
But something steadier… Resolve.