CHAPTER 5: The Moon Garden

I didn’t sleep a single second after the screams.

I sat on the narrow bed and listened until they finally stopped....hours later. When silence came, it felt worse. Heavier. As if the palace had swallowed the sound and was holding it inside its walls.

I was still awake when grey morning light slid through the glass.

The guard who brought my breakfast didn’t speak. He set the tray down, glanced at the dark circles under my eyes with something like pity, and left. I ate anyway. Not because I wanted to, but because I needed to stay strong enough to survive whatever came next.

An hour later, the Matron entered.

“You have free time this morning,” she said. “The Moon Gardens. East wing, ground floor. You will not go beyond the garden walls.”

I blinked at her. “That’s it? Just… go outside?”

“The vessel requires exposure to open air during the pre-tether period. It stabilizes resonance.” Her tone was practiced, empty of feeling. “One hour. A guard will collect you.”

She left before I could respond.

The Moon Gardens are nothing like the palace.

Inside the Spire and halls, everything is stone, iron, and cold blue fire that bends unnaturally toward the walls. But here, the world feels alive.

Silver grass ripples under faint morning light. White flowers cluster along winding stone paths. Pale-barked trees rise high above, their dark leaves shifting softly, as if the wind remembers how to move through them.

I inhale deeply.

It’s the first real air I’ve felt since arriving. My chest loosens slightly, not relief, not safety, just my body remembering it is still alive.

I sit on a stone bench at the center of the paths and close my eyes.

For a moment, there is only rustling leaves.

“You look better out here.”

My eyes snap open.

A man stands at the edge of the trees.

My first thought is not fear.

It is that I have never seen anyone like him.

He is tall in a way that changes the space around him. Broad-shouldered, dark-haired, dressed simply in a dark tunic with no insignia, no crown, nothing marking who he is.

He doesn’t need it.

His face is sharp, carved into stillness, strong jaw, straight nose, features too precise to feel accidental.

And his eyes...

Silver.

Not grey. Not blue.

Silver like the grass, as if the light itself has learned how to stay inside him.

He is devastating to look at. Completely, unfairly so.

And he is looking directly at me, like I am the only thing in the garden.

I stand immediately.

“You're not supposed to be out here,” I say.

He studies me for a moment. “I’m the prince,” he says simply. “I can be anywhere I want.”

There is no arrogance in it. No performance. Just fact.

I stare. “That’s your answer?”

“It’s the only one the question needed.”

I exhale slowly, forcing myself steady. “Fine. Are you going to tell me your name, or do princes not do that either?”

A faint flicker of amusement touches his mouth and disappears.

“What do you know about this place?” he asks instead.

“Enough to be scared,” I say. “Not enough to be useful.” I narrow my eyes. “You’re avoiding the question.”

“I’m redirecting it.”

“That’s the same thing.”

He doesn’t answer that. Instead, he studies me more closely, like he is trying to confirm something only he can see.

“You stood in the circle yesterday,” he says.

“You were watching us.”

“I watch everything in this palace.”

“Then you know I didn’t break like the others.”

“I know.”

He steps closer.

The air shifts.

“I want to know why,” he says quietly, “you didn’t break, Aylin.”

Hearing my name from him feels different. Not claimed. Not tested. Not weighed.

Just spoken.

“I didn’t fight it,” I say. “Whatever it was. I stopped trying to win.”

“Most people can’t do that.”

“Most people haven’t spent their lives losing things they couldn’t control.”

Silence stretches between us.

The silver grass moves, though there is no wind.

“You’re not afraid of me,” he says.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You’re still standing here.”

“So are you,” I reply. “And from what I hear, you’re the dangerous one.”

His gaze holds mine for a long moment.

Something inside him is working, measuring, searching, resisting. Not curiosity. Something sharper. Like restraint.

Then, without warning, he turns away.

No explanation. No farewell.

He disappears into the trees as if the conversation only existed because he allowed it to.

I stand alone in the silver garden.

“Miss Lunaris.”

I turn.

The Matron stands at the gate, silver rod in hand. Her posture is controlled, but something about her is off, tight, unsettled.

“Your hour is up,” she says.

“He came to me,” I say immediately. “I didn’t seek him out.”

“I know.”

My stomach tightens. “Is that normal?”

She doesn’t answer.

That silence is worse than denial.

Finally, she speaks, carefully. “That is your king-to-be. The Prince of Lupercal.

A pause.

“Prince Lucien.”

She turns toward the palace. “Come.”

I follow.

As we walk, her rod clicks against stone with each step.

“You will not seek him out,” she says. “You will not approach him first. You will not speak of this to the other girls.”

She stops at the palace door and looks back at me.

“Am I understood, Aylin?”

“Yes,” I say.

She opens the door.

The corridor swallows us again.

Back in the Spire corridor, the light feels colder.

As the Matron leads me away, something slips from my sleeve and falls to the floor.

A single silver leaf.

It lands quietly between us.

And where my fingers touched it,

It is already turning black.