CHAPTER 4: MOONLIGHT SECRETS

I can't sleep anymore. Not with the silver flecks in my eyes and the crescent mark pulsing on my lower back. Not with the memory of how I somehow forced Maddox out of my apartment with just my voice. It all feels too real now, too undeniable.

With shaking hands, I take out the journal again. If I'm going to understand what's happening to me, the answers have to be in here. My mother's words, her experiences, her knowledge of this world I apparently belong to without ever knowing it.

I settle by the window, the pale light of the waning moon spilling across my bed. It's nearly 4 AM now, the city as quiet as it ever gets. I open the journal to the beginning again, determined to read it more carefully this time, to catch any details I might have missed.

But when I look at it this time, it's different. Like it's the same book but it's like there's more to it. The pages I've already read now have additional text between the lines—text that wasn't there before. Or was it? Am I going crazy?

I tilt the book slightly, and the new text disappears. Confused, I move it back, and the words return.

Wait.

I deliberately move the journal in and out of the moonlight streaming through my window and notice it goes away when the moonlight isn't touching it. The hidden text only appears when bathed in moonlight.

"Wow," I breathe, hardly believing what I'm seeing.

Carefully, I position the journal fully in the moonlight and begin to read again. I see that there is something different even about what I had previously read. The entries I thought I understood now have deeper meanings, hidden contexts, secrets revealed only to those who know to look by moonlight.

January 3, 2210

They found another one today. A hybrid, like me. The authorities are calling it a "genetic anomaly," but J says it's becoming harder to hide what we are.

And now, written in a silvery script between the lines:

The Council of Pures grows more concerned with each discovery. J argues that we cannot hide forever, but Voren and his followers insist that exposure means extinction. What none of them understand is that hybrids like me are not accidents or anomalies—we are evolution's answer to a world that can no longer sustain the separation of kinds.

I continue reading, my heart racing:

March 17, 2210

The humans are getting suspicious. Their technology is advancing faster than our ability to shield ourselves from it.

And the hidden text:

The Sentinel Program has already identified three of our kind. They were taken to a facility outside the city. J has sources that say they're being studied, their abilities tested, their blood analyzed. The humans call it national security. We call it what it is: the beginning of another purge. The last one was centuries ago, but our elders remember. They remember the burnings, the drownings, the silver blades. History repeats for those who never learn from it.

I flip through more pages, hungry for information, for truth:

October 12, 2212

J and I have been selected for the diplomatic corps. If—when—the revelation comes, we'll be among the first to make contact with human governments.

The moonlight reveals:

This is a dangerous game we play. The Pures see us as pawns, expendable representatives they can distance themselves from if negotiations fail. J knows this, but believes his lineage protects him. He doesn't understand that Voren would sacrifice even a royal if it meant preserving their power. I worry for us both, but especially for the child I suspect I now carry. A child of dual heritage, born of a marked hybrid and a royal Pure. There are ancient prophecies about such a union. Prophecies that make us both saviors and targets.

My fingers tremble as I turn to the entry from the day I was born:

May 15, 2214

She's perfect. Ten fingers, ten toes, and already showing signs.

The hidden text is longer here, more urgent:

The midwife saw the potential in her immediately. "She carries both bloodlines strongly," she said. "Neither dominant, both in perfect balance." Such a thing hasn't been seen since before the Great Divide. J's ability to command, passed down through generations of the royal line, and my lunar sensitivity, the mark of the Moon Goddess's chosen. Both manifest in her tiny form.

We must be more careful than ever now. The Sentinel Program grows bolder. Three more of our kind disappeared last week. The human governments deny any knowledge, but we know the truth. And the Purist faction among our own kind grows more radical with each passing day. They see hybrids as dilution, as weakness. They would never accept a child of mixed heritage with royal blood.

We have placed the strongest glamours upon her, layers of protection that should hold at least until she reaches maturity. The lunar mark is hidden, as are her eyes—silver like the moon, not brown as they appear. Even her scent is masked, the telltale sweetness that would identify her to others of our kind.

I have encoded this journal with lunar ink, visible only in the light of the moon that gives me my power. If you are reading this, my daughter, it means the glamours are failing. It means you are becoming what you were always meant to be.

I turn to the next page, and find an entry I hadn't read before:

June 1, 2214

Your father is not just any Pure, my darling Lena. He is Jorah of the House of Silvercrest, direct descendant of the First Pack. The voice of command runs strong in his bloodline—the ability to compel obedience with mere words, to bend wills with a thought. It is a power meant for leaders, for those born to rule. In the old days, before the Great Divide, his ancestors were kings among our kind.

The humans would call him werewolf, though that term is a crude simplification of what the Silvercrest truly are. They are shifters, yes, but so much more—guardians of the ancient ways, keepers of our oldest magics. J can take the form of the great wolf when needed, but his true power lies in his voice, in his blood, in his connection to the primal force that birthed our kind.

And you, my moon-blessed daughter, carry this legacy within you, alongside my own gift from the Lunar Houses. The mark upon your back is proof of the Goddess's favor—a blessing bestowed upon just one female in each generation of my mother's line. It grants connection to the moon's power, the ability to harness its light, to see what others cannot, to move between worlds when the veil is thin.

You are neither Pure nor hybrid in the way the world understands those terms. You are something new, something unprecedented. The first child in countless generations to unite the power of the moon and the voice of the wild. The Silvercrest and the Lunar Houses, joined in one perfect being.

And that is why you are in danger. That is why we hide. There are those who would kill to prevent the prophecy from coming to pass, and others who would use you to fulfill it on their terms.

I stop reading, my mind reeling with revelations. My father was royalty among his kind—a werewolf, or something like one. My mother carried the blessing of some moon goddess. And I am... what? The fulfillment of a prophecy? A threat to be eliminated? A tool to be used?

The crescent mark on my back pulses, as if responding to my thoughts. I reach behind me, touching it lightly with my fingertips. It feels warm, alive.

Outside, clouds shift, momentarily blocking the moonlight. The hidden text disappears from the pages, leaving only my mother's more cautious original words. Then the clouds pass, and the silver writing reappears, shimmering with secrets meant only for eyes like mine.

Eyes with silver flecks that catch the moonlight, just like the pages of this journal.

I turn to the final entries, searching for answers about my parents' deaths, about why I was kidnapped. But the last pages are different—not my mother's handwriting at all, but someone else's. More angular, more hurried.

April 10, 2226

If you're reading this, Lena, they found your mother's journal. Good. Time is short. Your glamours are failing faster than we anticipated. The compulsion gift manifesting so young is unexpected—but then, everything about you defies expectation.

They are coming for you. Both sides. The Sentinels know what you are now, and the Purists have caught your scent. Winters and I can only shield you for so long.

There are things you need to know. About your parents. About their deaths. They did not die trying to rescue you from random kidnappers. They died protecting you from your grandfather, Voren Silvercrest, your father's own father. He is the leader of the Purist faction, and when he learned what his son had done—mating with a marked hybrid, producing a child that fulfilled the ancient prophecy—he moved to eliminate the threat to his vision of the future.

Your mother knew they were coming. She hid you, placed additional glamours upon you that even your father didn't know about. Glamours tied to your very blood, designed to suppress your true nature until you were old enough to control it. To understand it.

Those glamours are breaking down now. The power in your blood is too strong to be contained any longer.

When you're ready, when you understand what you are, find me. My name is Kieran. I was your father's brother, which makes me your uncle. I've been watching over you from a distance all these years, as has Winters. We are part of the Conclave—those who believe in integration, in a future where human and supernatural can coexist.

Trust no one else. Especially not the one who calls himself Maddox Jensen. He is not what he appears to be.

The crescent is the key. When the moon is full, press your palm to the mark and speak your true name. Not the name you've known, but the one written in the stars on the night of your birth.

Lena Silvermoon.

I close the journal, my hands shaking uncontrollably now. The moonlight seems to intensify, pouring through my window like liquid silver. The crescent on my back burns like a brand.

My whole life has been a lie. A carefully constructed fiction designed to hide me from enemies I never knew I had.

Including, apparently, Maddox. Who—or what—is he really? And what does he want with me?

I look at the sky outside my window. The moon is waning, days away from the new moon. How long until the full moon comes again? Two weeks? Three?

I have until then to decide whether I believe any of this. Whether I trust the words of people I've never met, written in magical ink that only appears in moonlight.

But even as I think it, I know the truth. The silver in my eyes. The mark on my back. The power in my voice that sent Maddox fleeing from my apartment.

I am Lena Silvermoon, daughter of Jorah Silvercrest and a mother whose full name I still don't know. I am neither Pure nor hybrid.

I am something new. Something feared.

And I have enemies coming for me from all sides.