By Her Light: Chapter 3

The Moon Speaks

Chapter 3: The Moon Speaks

Elias stood motionless, the vast expanse of the moon stretching endlessly before him. The silence was heavy, a presence unto itself, pressing against his skin and into his mind. He could feel something watching him, something ancient and vast, its awareness brushing against his like the tide lapping at the shore. He tightened his grip on the satchel he carried, the faint glow of the path he’d ascended now barely visible behind him, flickering like a distant memory.

“Anuna,” he whispered again, the name trembling on his lips.

The air shifted, humming faintly, as though the moon itself had drawn a breath. A light bloomed in the distance, radiant and soft, and Elias turned toward it instinctively. It grew brighter, its glow cascading across the silvered surface, until it resolved into a figure.

She was unlike anything Elias had imagined. Humanoid in form but ethereal in presence, her body shimmered like the moon’s surface—silvery, fluid, and ever-changing. Her eyes were deep pools of light, ancient and unreadable, and her hair flowed like molten silver, blending seamlessly with the air around her. She seemed both solid and intangible, as though she existed between moments, not bound by the laws of the world Elias had left behind.

“You’ve come,” she said, her voice a harmony of whispers and echoes, resonating not just in the air but in Elias’s very mind.

Elias swallowed hard, his pulse hammering in his ears. “You’re… Anuna.”

The figure inclined her head, a motion that was both graceful and deliberate. “I am what you call me. And you are the Keeper, chosen by the light.” Her gaze fixed on him, piercing yet sorrowful. “Do you know why you are here?”

“To… anchor you,” Elias said hesitantly, the words feeling inadequate against the weight of her presence. “To stop the calamities. That’s what the ritual is for.”

Anuna’s expression flickered, a shadow of pain crossing her luminous features. She regarded him for a long moment, her light dimming faintly. When she spoke again, her voice carried a guarded edge. “That is what they tell you, is it? A simple task for a savior from below.”

Elias hesitated, the weight of her question pulling at his thoughts. “It’s what the stories say. That the Lunar Keeper ascends to the moon to perform the ritual and stabilize your orbit.”

Anuna let out a sound that was neither a laugh nor a sigh, but something in between. It reverberated in the stillness, filled with centuries of unspoken emotion. “They’ve forgotten,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “They remember the ritual but not the reason. The act but not the cost.”

“The cost?” Elias’s voice wavered.

Anuna stepped closer, her form shimmering like starlight on water. “For millennia, I guided them, watched over them. I was their light in the darkness, their companion in the vast unknown. They sang songs in my name, wove their stories into my light. Do you know the hymn of the First Keeper? They knelt beneath my glow and sang, ‘By her light, the dark recedes, by her song, the stars are freed.’ That was my joy—to guide, to protect.”

Her voice softened, growing heavier. “But time is cruel, and humans are fleeting. They stopped looking up, stopped remembering. They turned away. They took my light for granted, forgetting it was more than reflection. They stopped singing.”

Elias’s heart clenched. He thought of the years he had spent watching the stars, his fascination mocked by those who called his work useless. He thought of the empty nights, the hours spent searching for meaning in the vastness of the cosmos, always feeling like a distant observer, never part of the world below. “I think I do,” he said softly.

Anuna’s gaze met his, a flicker of something unreadable in her luminous eyes. “Then perhaps you understand why I am as I am. The calamities are not my will, Keeper. They are the echoes of my sorrow, the fractures of a heart stretched too thin. Your world feels them because I can no longer bear the weight alone.”

Elias took a step forward, the fear in his chest replaced by a growing sense of empathy. “If you don’t want this… why don’t you stop it?”

Anuna’s form shimmered, her light dimming briefly. “Because I am bound. The ritual your people revere—the one you have come to complete—it does not heal me. It silences me. It locks my pain away, forcing me into submission. I become still, anchored, as they call it. But only for a time. My sorrow cannot be erased, only delayed. That is why I descend again and again.”

The weight of her words pressed down on Elias like gravity itself. He thought of the stories he had grown up with, the myths of heroic Keepers who saved the world. But if what Anuna said was true, then those tales were built on a lie—or at least, a half-truth. The Keepers hadn’t saved her. They had subdued her.

“Let me show you,” she said softly, her hand extending toward him.

Before Elias could respond, the air shimmered, and a vision unfolded before him. He saw the ritual as it was performed by the First Keeper—a brilliant light forced into the moon, its radiance dimming as Anuna’s form flickered and collapsed. He saw her silence spreading across the cosmos, the calamities stilled but her sorrow deepened. Over and over, the scene repeated: Keepers arriving, performing the ritual, and leaving Anuna bound in chains of her own light. The Earth celebrated, unaware of the cost. Each Keeper walked away, their faces haunted, their lives forever changed.

Elias clenched his fists, his thoughts racing. “There has to be another way,” he said, his voice trembling. “We can’t just keep repeating this cycle.”

Anuna regarded him, her expression unreadable. “You speak of change, Keeper, but you are one voice against centuries of tradition. The path you took to reach me is already fading. Time is running out. Will you follow the ritual, as those before you did, or will you risk everything for a path untried?”

Elias’s breath caught. He turned to look at the glowing path behind him. It was faint now, flickering like a dying ember. The way back to Earth was closing, a reminder that his time here was finite. He turned back to Anuna, her form shimmering with an otherworldly fragility. She seemed vast and unknowable, yet achingly human in her sorrow.

“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted, his voice breaking. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t know how to help you.”

Anuna stepped closer, the air around her humming with a strange, soothing resonance. “Then let us find the answer together,” she said. “But know this, Keeper: the path you choose will change not only me but the world you leave behind. Do you have the strength to bear that weight?”

Elias looked into her luminous eyes, the enormity of her question sinking into his chest. He didn’t feel strong enough, wise enough, or brave enough. But he had made it this far. Somehow, the moon had chosen him. And somehow, he would find a way to make that choice mean something.

“I’ll try,” he said quietly.

The moon pulsed faintly, a rhythm like a heartbeat, and the light around them seemed to soften. For the first time, Elias felt not just the weight of the moon’s sorrow but the faintest flicker of hope.