All Chapters of Will Bear the Moon: Chapter 351 - Chapter 360

The Green Drawing Room is quieter than I expected it to be. Pale winter light filters through tall windows, breaking apart on the thick clouds beyond before pooling in uneven patches across the intricate rug beneath our feet. Every shade of green imaginable lies woven into the fabric—moss and jade, seafoam and deep olive—colors rich enough to speak of distant lands and conquered artisans.I've always wondered about this tapestry. Some fallen kingdom, perhaps, from the early days of the first emperor's reign when borders expanded and cultures disappeared into Nochten's shadow. The rug might be all that remains of someone else's legacy, buried now beneath our own. Each time I look down at it, the weight of what came before settles heavier on my shoulders—the prices paid for this throne, and the costs yet to come. Hidi doesn’t glance down at the rug. She doesn’t notice it. Or if she did, she quickly lost interest. Her gaze, instead, stays transfixed on Nicoli sitting next to me on the c

*Nicoli*The realization didn’t come like thunder.It came quietly. Like the soft closing of a door he hadn’t noticed until it was already locked behind him. Nicoli's boots struck the marble with too much force, each step a sharp crack that ricocheted off the vaulted ceiling and chased him down the empty corridor. The palace's silence pressed against his eardrums—thick, suffocating, like being buried alive in velvet. The silence of the palace offered no comfort. Had there ever been a time these halls did? That these halls didn’t feel like some mausoleum? Was there a time the air didn't taste of held breath and hidden truths? Nicoli could not say. He didn’t know. There was so much about Anastasia's world he'd never known, didn’t realize was severely lacking all this time. But the pieces were falling into place now, each one landing like a stone in his chest.And it all felt too late. The cold seeped through the seams of his coat, through his skin, settling deep in his bones. But t

*King Alexander* Alexander watched Anastasia disappear down the marble corridor like a shadow slipping behind a veil—unwavering in her expression, yet brittle as winter glass. Shoulders rigid as armor plating, chin lifted in defiant mimicry of her mother's own expression. A cruel irony that didn’t go unmissed by him. Like a blade twisting between his ribs.. Because, like mother, like daughter—it made him all the more desperate to search for the fractures beneath the porcelain mask. Anastasia was drowning. Stretched gossamer-thin, each thread of her composure ready to snap. Her footfalls echoed with leaden exhaustion, the careful measured pace of someone fighting to remain upright. The way her fingers had trembled—barely perceptible—when she'd gathered her skirts. The distant fog that had clouded her crimson eyes during court proceedings, her mind a thousand leagues away from the petitions and proclamations.She was taking this burden far harder than pride would ever let her voice, c

*Ana*The wind snarls with a bone-shattering snap, its howl echoing off the marble columns like a wounded beast. It cuts through velvet and wool and fur, no matter how tightly I clutch my reinforced cloak around my shoulders. She is hell-bent to reach into every tender space with vengeance, her icy fingers finding the gaps between fabric and flesh, making a misery of everyone.Like a cruel god, each gust kicks up fine dust from the desert’s edge, peppering the White Steps and gilded stone in shades of dull ochre. Even the sky looks bruised—dark, low, swollen with snow that never falls yet but taunts with its promise. The kind of sky that presses down on your chest, that warns of a storm ready to brew with the weight of held breath. Threatening the passage back through the mountains to be slow and torturous if given more time.It will not wait. I must hurry the farewells along. A struggle as it is, because each moment is like pulling a fang. There are ceremonies to uphold. Eyes to sa

*Nicoli*And just like that, Nicoli was alone.Not alone in the room, perhaps—servants still ghosted past at the edges of the lobby, their footsteps whisper-soft against marble—but alone in that quiet, suffocating way that settled behind the ribs like stones and refused to leave.The sound of his mother's heels still hung in the air like a low fog, trailing down the western hall. Sharp. Precise. Each click a period at the end of sentences he couldn't finish. Then came the crystalline whisper of the chandelier above—trinkling faintly like breaking icicles as the great doors reopened to let the maids back in, their arms laden with the first of many trunks. Brass buckles caught the light. Leather groaned under weight. The familiar sounds of arrival that should have felt like homecoming but tasted instead like copper coins on his tongue.He didn’t move.His shoulders remained locked, spine rigid as carved stone. The smiles and quick hellos from the passing staff felt distant. Flat. As if