Vanya dragged Liora outside to the crowd, asking them to pick who their true Luna is.
Gonzalo moved with the inevitability of weather. He stepped between Liora and Vanya before the distance closed, his presence a wall that absorbed the tension in the chamber. Both women halted as if pulled by cords: Liora's hand frozen on her dagger, Vanya's head tilted with a smile that did not reach her eyes. For a moment the whole stronghold seemed to hold its breath.
"Stop this." Gonzalo's voice was low, but everyone heard it. It carried the authority of someone who had led wars and mended treaties, the kind of voice that calmed wolves and rallied men. He placed a hand on Liora's arm—not gentle, not rough but firm enough to ground her. Then he faced Vanya, and the respect in his posture was complex, threaded with old history and new calculations.
"We will not tear apart what we have built tonight," he said. "You may have returned by blessing or by fate, but you will not be crowned by blood spilled among your people."
There was a ripple of assent and relief from the crowd. Some nodded, some dropped to one knee, grateful that the moment of violence had been averted. Liora felt the heat in her face and the cold of humiliation like opposite tides. Gonzalo's decision was what it was: a command to preserve the pack. She had understood that in her bones. That did not soften the sting.
Vanya inclined her head. "I never wished for blood," she said, voice soft as a bell. "I wished for reunion. I wished for peace."
Gonzalo's hand tightened almost imperceptibly on Liora's arm before he let her go. "You will leave this to me," he told Vanya. "I will handle Liora."
The words landed with the terrible finality of a gavel. Liora had expected many things—anger, negotiation, exile but she had not expected the sense that she would be made small, that someone would promise to "handle" her as if she were a matter to be sorted. It was a phrase that made her skin crawl.
Vanya smiled then in a way that made a thousand small knives kiss Liora's heart. "As you will," she answered. "I will accept your wisdom, Alpha. Handle her as you must."
The pack erupted into renewed worship. Drums beat and voices rose in praise, the air thick with incense and smoke. Priests moved through the throng, threading garlands of pale flowers, matching the circle with ritual and hymn. The transformation of the stronghold into a temple of Vanya's presence was almost immediate—an instinctual shift among people who had once feared the unknown and now found a face to invest their meaning.
Liora stepped back. She had to. Her legs felt unsteady, the kind of gravity that dragged at a body when its center is taken. She did not argue. Even if she had wanted to, she had no stage left. They had made Vanya the axis around which everything turned, and she had nowhere to place herself except further and further out along the rim.
As the ceremonies swelled, she felt the sidelines close. At first it was small: a greeting less warm than before, a table where she once sat now left empty in favor of Vanya's attendants, a question from a council elder answered without seeking her counsel. The omissions were surgical, almost polite, as if the pack feared that acknowledging her exclusion might wound her more deeply.
Liora felt like a story retold wrongly. The moments she shared with Gonzalo, the nights spent planning, the whispered promises—they shriveled like herbs left in the sun. She tried to meet his eyes once, to find some anchor, but his face was set with a leader's diplomacy. He had chosen a role to play and a path he thought would keep the pack whole. He would "handle" her. The word widened into a gulf.
In the days that followed, the stronghold hummed with devotion. Vanya moved easily among the people as one born to the praise. She bore the titles and gestures as if they had been made for her; she accepted the circlets and blessings with a grace that made elders weep. Her laughter was soft and full, and when she spoke, people leaned in as though the sound were prophecy.
The healers sang her praises for the miracle she represented. Nyssa, though worn and chastened, stood near without the full intimacy she had once shared with Liora. Sometimes their eyes met across the crowd—Nyssa's face an island of apology or defense, Liora's a cliff of accusation. The bond between them had become a ledger of debts that
neither could easily balance.