The creature stood only a few feet from us, the storm swirling around its thin frame as if the world recoiled from it. It was small, no taller than a young child, but its proportions were wrong. Limbs too long. Shoulders too narrow. Joints bending in strange angles, as though its bones had grown without guidance. The silver glow from its eyes pierced the falling snow. Those eyes did not blink.
It said my name again.
Not Kaia.
The other one. The one whispered in my dreams. The Moonborn name I barely remembered. Hearing it in the creature’s fractured voice made something inside me twist.
The girl gasped behind me. She clutched my coat and pressed her face against my back. “That one was the oldest of us,” she whispered. “Before the seal.”
I wanted to ask more, but the creature stepped fo
