Wren Ashvale prayed to the moon-goddess with her eyes shut, because opening them could kill. The temple stood full at dawn. Forty worshippers knelt around her on cold stone. Wren knelt among them, head bowed, dark braids pinned low over her face. She wanted what she had always wanted: to wake the fallen goddess whose forgotten worship had marked her. The mark lived in her eyes. They glowed faint gold, and anyone who met them turned to stone. So she kept her gaze on the floor. But real prayer needed the altar. The old rites said a priestess must lift her face to the goddess and speak. Wren could not lift her face. Not here. The woman beside her shifted closer. "You never look up," the woman whispered. "The goddess wants your eyes." Wren's stomach tightened. If she lifted her head and the woman turned, one careless glance would leave her a statue on the temple floor. Wren stood. She walked out with her chin against her chest, past rows of kneeling backs, and did not stop until the temple doors shut behind her. She could not pray here. Not without risking a life. That truth had chased her for years. She needed a place with no one to turn to stone. Wren remembered a ruin past the edge of town. An old shrine to the moon-goddess, abandoned when the worship died. No one went there now. She walked until the path emptied. The shrine rose from the weeds, pale stone cracked and streaked with moss. A carved crescent crowned the top. Smaller moons ran down its face, each phase in order, half of them worn to shadow. Broken pillars leaned around the steps. Dust and quiet filled the air. Wren climbed the cracked steps. She turned in a slow circle. No worshippers. No woman beside her. No one to lose. She faced the carved crescent. Then, for the first time in years, she lifted her head. Her eyes opened. Gold light spilled across the stone. The carved moons caught it and held it, and the shadowed phases brightened, one by one, as if her gaze fed them. Wren spoke the old rite aloud. Her voice shook, then steadied. The words came from memory, from the mother who had taught them before she died. She said them to the end. When she finished, the crescent above her glowed. Not from her eyes now. From within the stone itself. A thin, cold light, like the moon through cloud. Wren stared. The goddess had answered. After all the years of hiding, something had heard her. Then the light narrowed to a single beam. It struck the base of the shrine, where the lowest carved moon sat. The stone split. Behind it lay a dark opening, and stairs going down. Wren gripped the cold edge of the shrine. She had wanted the goddess to answer. Now the goddess had, and the answer led underground, into the dark, alone.