A Crown of Ashes

stant companion that tasted of metal and suspicion. Every polite nod from a courtier felt like an accusation; every hushed conversation a verdict. The court watched Darius and me, their eyes hungry, not as pieces on a game board, but as predat

s of Lunaris arrived, a

lor of a starless midnight, was woven with lumina blossoms that pulsed with a faint, ethereal light. They said she only abandoned her sacred temple when th

poke, her voice a rasp of dry leaves and ancient secrets. It was a sound that did not echo but seeped into the very stone. "A union app

napping of a thousand brittle branches. A prophecy. Not a ne

hould the forbidden bond take root, a war of fang and claw will bleed

my lungs. A hundred pairs of eyes pivoted from the Priestes

moment, every truth I had bl

air a balm against my burning skin. I needed the vast, silent canvas of the sky to swallow the storm raging within me. Beneath the silver-d

quiet certainty that never startled me. He was a fa

he said, his voice low as he joined me b

e my sixteenth birthday," I rep

. "The prophecy has given them a reason. A weapon." He paused, his own hand hovering

e offered me a world of stability on steady hands, a world I *should* want. When his fingers fina

e a ghost. A shadow of t

the nights grew cold. It was the inf

-

damned fool to believe this maelstrom between us could remain a secret of the shadows. Th

de, honed over centuries, aimed directly at the

dden

owed

r divine

me and Seraphina. It was about the fate of Virelia. The vultur

ng day, the

concern. "The prophecy is a clear omen. Virelia cannot stand without a Luna to t

g, my silence a wall they could not breach. But inside, the beast inside me paced its cage, clawing at the bars. Fo

n hers. And she h

s turn white on the arm of my throne. Every primal instinct, every fiber of my Lycan soul, screamed a sing

is m

war to prove it, I wo

-

High Priestess, but I hadn't needed her celesti

he silence between them, a space so charged with unspoken things it could set the very air alight. It was in the way Darius's posture would change when she entered a

He was her uncle, her protector. A man who had practically raised her. The

ame. And suddenly, I saw the truth not as a po

glance when she thought herself unobserved, as if she were stari

me that I still had a chance, that fate might have ro

in shadow and fire. And as I watched Seraphina flee the hall, her eyes wide with a terro

a fight. I was

-

e winds. I was the Heir, the future Luna, the Child of Prophecy. A political asset to be married off, a

oon pooling on the floor, all those titles melted away. When the

, whispered from the

ri

ingdom's ruin. In the quiet of my own heart, I knew I would wa