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The Quiet War (1)
Last Updated:
2025-05-28 21:32:10
Latest chapter
The Last Moonbane The Nightmare
Seraphina's POVAfter Ambrosius left, I didn’t return to the ballroom.Didn’t speak to anyone. Didn’t remove my jewelry. Didn’t even untie my hair.I let the night bury me.My limbs felt like stone. My thoughts, like fog—thick and unmoving. The weight of the evening had settled into my skin like dust, and I didn’t have the strength to brush it off.I told myself I would lie down for just a moment.Just a breath.But sleep found me too quickly.The dream began as silence.Not the peaceful kind. Not the kind lovers share beneath starlight.This was the silence of forgotten cathedrals.Of things buried.Of endings that hadn’t yet arrived—but already mourned.Above me hung the red moon. Not a full orb, but fractured, as though something ancient had taken a bite out of it. The sky pulsed in hues of bruise and rust.And beneath that cursed glow, I stood alone on a road I didn’t recognize.The path curved like a serpent through a garden I did not remember planting.I took a step.The stone b
The Last Moonbane The Quiet War (2)
Stephen’s POVI didn’t go to my room after that. I couldn’t.The old sparring hall was abandoned at this hour. Dust in the corners, the mirrors cracked like spiderwebs. It still smelled like sweat and splintered wood and memory.I threw my fists into the training post until my bones ached. Until the pulse in my knuckles drowned out the echo of her voice.She looked at him like she used to look at me. Before everything broke.Before I became the twin brother instead of the tether. Before I was just the one who watched her fall out of orbit.Blood trickled from my hand. I didn’t bother stopping it.Pain, at least, is simple. It doesn’t shift beneath you like affection does.When we were younger, she told me we were halves of the same coin. One never without the other. Two souls in the same sky.I believed it. Gods help me, I still believe it.But coins don’t orbit. They flip. They fall.And I think I finally know which side she’s landed on.Ambrosius knows.He knew the moment he saw me
The Last Moonbane The Quiet War (1)
Stephen’s POVI don’t remember when I started counting how often she laughed without me.But I remember tonight.The birthday candles had long since melted into pale wax puddles. The music had dulled to a far-off echo. The air inside the ballroom had felt thick—like honey and smoke and something unsaid.And then she left.I saw it from across the room. Her slipping out a side door, posture stiff, chin tilted like she was trying to hold in the breath that refused to come. No one noticed, not really. Except me.Of course I followed.Not like a fool. Like a brother. That’s what I told myself, at least.She was in the gardens when I found her. Half in shadow, leaning against the old stone railing with her eyes closed and her arms tucked around herself. The wind picked at her dress like it was asking her to dance again.I stopped a few paces away. Let the silence sit between us before breaking it.“You didn’t even stay for the toast.”She opened her eyes slowly. “Too many people. Too much
The Last Moonbane The 17th Birthday (2)
Seraphina's POVThe candles had long burned out. Most of the guests had already vanished into shadowy corridors or stumbled their way back to dorm rooms or waiting carriages. The hall was quiet again—too quiet.I stepped out to the side garden. It was damp with dew, the grass cool beneath my heels. The moon had dipped low, veiled by passing clouds. A perfect hiding place for things I didn’t want to think about.Footsteps followed. Light. Familiar.I didn’t turn.“Stephen.”He didn’t answer at first. Just stood beside me.“You disappeared right after the toast,” he said.“I needed air.”He nodded. “I figured.”We stood there, side by side, looking out at the hedge maze. The lanterns swayed faintly in the breeze.“I used to love birthdays,” I murmured. “When I was little. I thought maybe, this year, she'd show up early. Maybe she’d bake something. Maybe... we’d have a father.”Stephen didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. We’d shared those same silent wishes too many times before.“But then,
The Last Moonbane The 17th Birthday (1)
Seraphina's POVBirthdays used to mean something. A wish whispered into a candle. A mother’s hand brushing your hair. A hope that maybe, this year, things would be different.When I was small, I thought birthdays were magic.I’d wake up early and sneak into the library, pretend not to be waiting as the castle stirred. I thought maybe, just once, she would come. That my mother would remember. That she would smile.She rarely did.And later, after I learned what it meant to be born a Moonbane, birthdays turned sour. They were markers, countdowns. One more year closer. To what, exactly? Death? The curse? I wasn’t even sure.This year, I hadn’t expected anything. Not really.So when I walked into the stone dining hall and found it transformed—garlands of pale flowers hung from the sconces, soft gold light pooling on the long table, silver cutlery so polished it glimmered like stars—I froze.Ambrosius leaned against the far wall, arms crossed.He didn’t smile, but his voice held a rare sof
The Last Moonbane The Dream
Seraphina’s POVI’d changed.Back in the human world, I used to skip classes without guilt and sleep through half of the lectures without consequence. The only thing I seemed good at was pretending nothing mattered—and for a while, that was enough. But things were different now.Now, I read every assigned text. I trained until my body screamed in protest. I stayed up late studying magical law and bloodline structures. And I wasn’t just keeping up anymore.I was winning.Top of every exam. First in every combat trial. Even the tutors had stopped hiding their surprise.Stephen noticed, of course.“Okay, I get it now,” he said one afternoon, slumped beside me on the training mat after I’d knocked him down—again. “This is why the family head’s always a woman.”I raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”He grinned, brushing a leaf from his shoulder. “Once a woman gets serious about something, the rest of us are doomed. I mean, look at you.”“You’re not a man, Stephen. You’re sixt
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