Whispers Before the Moon

Previously

…I looked at Lyra, at the man who was both my salvation and my undoing. His love was a wildfire, consuming and beautiful, but also potentially destructive. And I, Elara, was standing at the precipice of a choice that would forever alter the course of my life, and perhaps, the fate of my village. The moon, a sliver of pale light in the bruised sky, offered no answers, only a silent, watchful presence. The whispers of the wind seemed to carry a warning, a lament, a question. And the answer, I knew, lay not in the whispers, but in the quiet, resolute beating of my own heart.