Semua Bab The Last Moonbane: Bab 61 - Bab 70

Seraphina’s POVThere was nothing intimate about a werewolf engagement ceremony.No vows whispered in secret. No tender moments beneath starlight. Just tradition, old and iron-clad.Before the feast truly began, I had been led—silently, efficiently—into a side chamber carved from obsidian and silver. There, a Riddle elder I didn’t recognize placed a single slash of ritual ink across my wrist, cool and stinging. In front of the assembled witnesses, Ambrosius pressed his thumb to the mark, sealing it in with his blood.Not his magic.His blood.Because the bond wasn’t made with power. It was made with lineage.That, more than anything, was what this was about.The rest was ceremony: a brief hand-touching, a shared drink from a chalice older than the current Council, and a line of bored nobles murmuring their approval as if this engagement were no more significant than a seasonal hunt.By the e

Seraphina’s POVIt was quiet at Moonbane Manor.Not the kind of quiet that invites rest, but the kind that waits. Our family had always existed in silences like this—between storms, between choices, between lives that were never really ours to begin with.After the engagement feast, I returned alone.Stephen was already there. He hadn’t attended. No one asked why.Helena said nothing, either.But when I stepped into the corridor that led to the south wing, the part of the house where we’d grown up, I found fresh footprints in the dustless floor—his boots, pacing.And I knew.I didn’t see him until morning.The library windows were open, letting in gray light that looked like it belonged in another century. Stephen was seated at the long table beneath the main balcony, a stack of old estate ledgers untouched in front of him.He didn’t look up when I entered.I crosse

Seraphina’s POVPerhaps she was right.For now, I couldn’t do anything to her.Not in the way that mattered. Not in a way that would last.There were rules in place, and appearances to maintain. The academy might be filled with future aristocrats and covert monsters, but it still liked to pretend we were children under its protection. Discipline, decorum, restraint—these were the codes we’d all agreed to wear like uniforms, even if they were fraying at the seams.And so, for now, I waited.Diantha strutted down hallways with her small, sparkling court in tow, her voice always a little too loud, her laughter designed to carry. Her jewelry grew bolder each day—more intricate, more enchanted. I recognized one of the brooches she wore last week. It used to rest in the northern wing of Moonbane Manor, displayed beneath warded glass.Now it pinned her cloak closed, like a trophy.My new maid, Evangeline, didn’t bother hiding her reac

Seraphina’s POVWe didn’t speak of the pendant again.Not out loud.Not even in the way one sometimes says nothing and still says everything.Thalia didn’t ask what else I had seen below the shrine floor. Elias didn’t question why the beacon was warm like it had been holding breath.But I could tell they felt it.The Wildfold wasn’t just reacting anymore.It was watching.We didn’t leave the site immediately.The map had reshaped its objectives, but none urgent enough to force movement—not when the light was thinning and the air had started to buzz with storm energy. This part of the island was more stable than most, and we had advantage of high ground.So we set up a perimeter.Thalia took the northern edge, muttering quietly as she reset her barrier glyphs. Elias moved toward the southern slope with his scope orb, scanning for moving heat. I returned to the broken shrine, not to guard it, but to watch it.The pendant was still there.Lying in the dirt where I’d first seen it—glintin

Stephen’s POVAt first, I thought we hadn’t buried him deep enough.We didn’t dig graves in the Wildfold. The moss wouldn’t allow it, and the roots always shifted back, like the forest resented the disturbance. So we covered the body—Perran, the boy who died after touching the cursed earring—with rocks and a ward field, then left him under a low ridge, marked with a glowing glyph for retrieval.None of us wanted to look at it again.The earring had stopped pulsing.That’s what made it worse.It just lay there, glinting faintly in the dirt beside his hand like nothing had happened.We made camp a few kilometers away.Too many students had arrived to keep the original team structures intact. We consolidated with two nearby groups—just under a dozen of us now, sharing watch shifts and resources. No one asked who was in charge.The fear did that for us.Maren didn’t speak. She sat sharpening her blade with small, tight movements that didn’t match the dull edge of her whetstone. Harlan adj