LEGEND OF THE SLAIN LUNA [II]

✦ISOLDE'S POV✦

“But you do,” Selena said softly.

Roselyn shifted irritably across the bed before turning onto her side and closing her eyes dramatically while I smiled faintly at her behavior before looking back toward Selena.

“For God’s sake, Mother, we are twenty,” Roselyn complained tiredly, her voice carrying the exhausted tone of someone already prepared to reject whatever came next.

“You are both still my babies,” I replied softly while stretching my hand toward her leg and rubbing it gently despite her obvious annoyance.

“Old enough not to be told bedtime stories,” Roselyn muttered while Selena glanced toward me with an amused smile, and for a moment both of us simply looked at each other knowingly before I sighed quietly.

“Alright,” I said, lowering my gaze briefly before lifting it back toward Selena. “Even if this is the last story I ever tell you both, there is something important you deserve to know.”

Roselyn slowly turned her head toward me while Selena straightened slightly beside her, curiosity instantly replacing the amusement on both their faces.

“A Luna lives,” I said quietly.

“Luna?” they both repeated together while I nodded slowly in response, my eyes drifting away from them moments later as memories I had spent years trying to bury reached out for me once again.

The doors suddenly burst open with enough force to shake the walls violently, and Rowan immediately stepped in front of me before I could even react, his body shielding mine while one hand pushed me carefully behind him despite my swollen stomach and the other raised his sword directly toward the figure standing at the entrance.

Outside the chamber, chaos consumed the palace completely.

The deafening clash of steel echoed endlessly through the halls alongside agonized screams, collapsing stone, and the terrifying roars of wolves echoing throughout the kingdom while flames devoured sections of the palace beyond the windows. Human soldiers and corrupted wolves slaughtered one another beneath the moonlit skies as blood soaked the streets of Elarion, the war swallowing everything in its path without mercy.

Rowan turned sharply toward Fiora, his younger sister, after hearing her frightened gasp from behind us, and the moment she stumbled backward in fear, he immediately shifted slightly to keep both of us behind him before returning his full attention toward the doorway again.

Lucien stood there breathing heavily, his appearance disordered enough to make him nearly unrecognizable beneath the blood staining his clothes while his trembling expression carried the restrained devastation of someone barely holding himself together.

“Please,” he said hoarsely, his voice breaking slightly despite his attempt to remain calm. “Help us.”

Rowan’s sword lowered only slightly as confusion and caution crossed his face at the desperation in Lucien’s eyes, and a second later Lucien stepped aside carefully, revealing the woman standing behind him.

Seraphina.

Even covered in blood, her beauty remained hauntingly ethereal beneath the moonlight spilling through the corridor, strands of silver hair clinging to her pale skin while crimson stained the front of her gown heavily from the shoulder down to her waist. Yet none of that drew my attention as much as the baby trembling quietly in her arms beneath the blood-soaked blanket wrapped carefully around its tiny body.