POV: Elara Ashwyn
I wake up gasping.
My body convulses like I'm drowning, even though I'm lying in the softest bed I've ever felt. For a moment, I can't remember where I am—all I know is darkness and falling and hands that pulled me through shadows.
The King's hands.
I bolt upright, panic flooding my chest. My wounds—they're gone. No gashes from rogue claws. No bruises from the ravine. My skin is smooth, unmarked, like the last three months of survival never happened.
"Easy," a voice says from the corner.
An old woman sits in a carved chair, watching me with knowing eyes. She's ancient—truly ancient, like she's been alive since the world was young. Her clothes shimmer between colors. Silver hair falls past her shoulders.
"Where—" My voice is raw. "What happened? The King, he—"
"Saved you," the woman interrupts gently. "Brought you through the shadow paths. You've been unconscious for six hours. Your body needed to heal, so you slept."
She stands, moving toward me with surprising grace. Before I can react, she places a hand on my belly.
I tense. But her touch is warm. Gentle. Reverent.
"The child?" I demand, protecting my hand over hers. "Is the baby—"
"Perfect," the woman whispers, and her eyes glow silver for just a moment. "Healthy. Strong. Protected by magic older than the Moon Court itself. Your daughter is a fighter, like her mother."
Daughter.
I press both hands to my belly, and tears spill down my cheeks before I can stop them. After three months of terror, of starvation, of thinking my baby might not survive—
She's alive. She's healthy.
"I'm Sage Elira," the woman says, settling back into her chair. "The King's healer and counselor. When you're ready, there's much to discuss. But first, eat."
As if summoned by magic, a tray appears on the bedside table—fresh fruit, warm bread, broth that smells of healing herbs. I eat like an animal, stuffing food in my mouth, not caring about manners. Sage Elira watches without judgment.
When I finally finish, there's a knock at the door.
A man enters—tall, broad-shouldered, with eyes that have seen a thousand battles. He's handsome in the way warriors are: scarred, weathered, commanding. When he studies me, it's with the clinical assessment of someone measuring an opponent.
"Luna Queen," he says, and inclines his head slightly. Not a full bow. Not submission. Respect between equals. "I'm Lord Theron. The King's general and oldest friend. He asked me to explain your position here."
Luna Queen.
The words feel surreal.
"I don't understand," I say. "I'm nobody. I'm wolfless. I'm—"
"You're the woman who survived three months in the Shadowlands carrying a child," Theron interrupts. "You're the woman who fought five rogues with a broken knife. You're the woman the King chose to stand beside him. That makes you everything."
He gestures for me to follow. "Come. See your kingdom."
I should feel scared. I should demand answers. Instead, I stand, and my legs—strong, healed, powerful—carry me forward.
Sage Elira nods encouragement. "Go. You need to see this."
Theron leads me through corridors that shouldn't exist. The palace is vast, impossible, like it was carved from shadow itself. But it's not dark or oppressive. Silver light seems to come from the stone itself, illuminating passages that curve in directions that defy geometry.
We emerge onto a balcony, and I stop breathing.
Below us stretches a kingdom.
Not a small settlement. A kingdom. Thousands of people moving through streets of black stone and silver. Markets filled with goods. Training grounds where warriors spar. Gardens where flowers grow in colors I didn't know existed. And everywhere—everywhere—I see them.
The outcasts.
Wolves with visible scars, their forms asymmetrical or wrong in ways that would make Silvercrest recoil. Humans living freely without fear. Rogues who move with purpose instead of desperation. Children playing without hierarchy, without the constant calculation of pack rank.
"The Obsidian Kingdom," Theron says quietly. "Founded one hundred years ago when the Moon Court began hunting those they deemed imperfect. Every wolf here was rejected by their pack. Every human here was hunted for sport. Every rogue here chose survival over obedience."
"It's a revolution," I breathe.
"Yes." Theron's voice carries pride. "The King built this place as a sanctuary. But it's more than that. It's a statement. Proof that you don't need the Moon Court's blessing to matter. Proof that the broken can become something greater."
He points to different sections of the city. "That tower trains combat specialists. That compound houses healers and scholars. That district is where children learn they have value beyond their wolf form. That forge creates weapons that can hurt even immortals."
My mind reels. This is treason against the Moon Court. This is everything they fear and hunt and try to destroy.
"Why am I here?" I ask. "Why did the King choose me?"
Theron turns to me, and his scarred face softens into something almost vulnerable.
"You'll have to ask him that," he says. "But if I had to guess? Because you're like him. Broken by the Moon Court. Labeled worthless by their standards. Yet still rising."
He leads me back inside, through more impossible corridors, until we reach a massive set of doors carved from black stone. Twin moons are etched into the surface—one silver, one shadow.
"The throne room," Theron says. "You should see it. Should understand what you've become part of."
He pushes the doors open.
I step inside and immediately understand why he wanted me to see it.
The throne room is vast, and at its center stands two thrones. Not one. Two. Identical. Equal.
One side silver, one side shadow.
"The King said you would sit here beside him," Theron explains. "As Luna Queen. Not as a prize. Not as a symbol. As an equal partner in ruling this kingdom and everything it stands for."
I approach the silver throne slowly, reverently. Running my fingers along the carved surface, I feel the power embedded in it. Ancient power. Moon power.
"There's something else you should know," a new voice says.
I spin around.
Sage Elira stands in the doorway, and her expression has changed. No longer gentle. Now she looks grave. Frightened, even.
"The King saved you from the Shadowlands," she says slowly. "But he didn't save you randomly. He found you because he was looking for you specifically."
My stomach twists. "What do you mean?"
"He knew who you were before you did," Elira says. "He recognized the signs. The wolflessness. The power beginning to awaken. The child you carried."
She steps closer, and her ancient eyes lock with mine.
"Elara, the King didn't save you because he felt pity. He saved you because he's been waiting a hundred years for someone like you to appear. Someone he could use to—"
The doors explode inward.
A figure emerges from shadow—the Obsidian King, masked and terrible and absolutely furious. His shadows writhe around him like living things, and when he speaks, his voice is thunder.
"Elira," he snarls, "you don't get to tell her that story."
He moves toward the sage with such rage that even Theron steps back.
"Because the truth is far more complicated than betrayal," the King continues, removing his gloves with deliberate slowness. "And Elara deserves to hear it from me."
He stops before me, his masked face tilting down to meet my eyes.
"I didn't save you because I was hunting for you," he says quietly. "I saved you because when I held you in that cave, when I felt your child kick against my palm, when I saw the defiance in your eyes despite everything you'd lost—"
He extends his hand.
"I realized I would burn down the entire world to keep you alive. Not for a plan. Not for strategy. For you."
The shadows around him intensify.
"But what Elira was about to tell you—what you deserve to know—is that your bloodline and my curse are connected. Deeply. Dangerously. And the moment your full power awakens, everything changes."
Behind him, the shadows split open, revealing a vision.
Images flicker across the darkness: a woman who looks like me, glowing with moon-fire. The King, young, without his mask. An ancient ceremony. A sacrifice. A curse born from love.
"Your ancestor," the King says, "was my mate. A thousand years ago. The Moon Priestess who loved me enough to let herself be hunted to extinction rather than let me become what they tried to force me to become."
I can't breathe.
"And you," he continues, "carry her blood. Her power. And when your daughter is born, when your Priestess abilities fully awaken, you'll understand what you really are."
The shadows intensify around us both.
"You're not just a refugee I saved, Elara Ashwyn. You're the answer to a curse that's been tearing me apart for a thousand years. You're the woman who might finally set me free."