All Chapters of The Stand-In Luna: Chapter 131 - Chapter 138

AshleyThe cave was quiet. I could hear myself blink and even the slight sound of my clothes moving to accommodate my movement.Katerina’s figure hovered before me, her form less menacing, more… human. Her hair flowed like smoke, and though her eyes still held centuries of grief, I saw something soft behind them. Something fragile and vulnerable.In her eyes, I once again saw through her tragic story, and why it corrupted her to some extent.“I was trapped in that forest for years, searching for him. I hope you never experience such, because up until the point where that necklace was retrieved, I had been roaming the lands as a sceptre, not even knowing what I was searching for until I was approached by that Alpha who was so desperate for power.“I waited,” she whispered, her voice echoing as if carried in the wind. “I waited for him to return. And he never did.”The necklace in my hand pulsed, the curse embedded in its core flickering between life and death. Something had shifted. Ch

JaceIt had been two days since the cursed spirit had vanished into the void, her eerie smoke flowing long after her form dissolved. Two days since the ancient necklace, once pulsing with ominous power, had crumbled into nothing but fine, black dust in my trembling hands. And two days since my carefully laid plans had begun to collapse, piece by piece, like a dying star devouring itself and becoming a black hole. I'd replayed every moment in my head, every decision that had led to this point, trying to pinpoint where it had all gone wrong, but there were too many cracks, too many secrets left in the dark.The war room was cloaked in shadow, lit only by the dying orange glow of dying embers in the fireplace. Smoke curled upward, clinging to the low carved ceiling. A large map was spread across the oak table at the center of the room, its surface covered with inked borders and faded symbols. Wooden markers, carved by hand and worn smooth from years of use, dotted the map, each one rep

JaceI stood by the frosted window of the council chamber, fingers tightening around the edge of the sill. Outside, the barren trees of Moonlit Silver swayed in the evening wind, stark and unyielding—just like the truth he now had to confront. The cursed spirit had vanished, Ashley was gone, and the necklace, our one leverage, had crumbled to dust.I was losing control, teetering on the very edge, and one slight imbalance was bound to make me crash and burn. But I wasn't going down without a fight. Not in the slightest bit.Lucas stood a few paces behind me, arms crossed, his voice low and direct. “The rogues are waiting. You promised them carnage.”I nodded slowly, jaw clenched. “They’ll get it, when the time is right. I've done my part, Lucas, and yours is to keep them in check until everything else is finally in place for our plans. This is why we always need to have contingencies.”But even as I spoke, rage simmered under my skin. That spirit had outplayed me. Ashley had slipped t

Ashley The vision swallowed me in like a tide, filling me up until I had nothing left of myself and all of it. All consuming, all encompassing. It took full control with a tight grip that made it certain that it wasn't planning to let go of me at all.One moment I was standing in the roots of the tree, breath tangled in my throat, the bracelet still warm on my wrist. The next, the world swam and peeled back like old paint. Color shifted. The wind changed. And I just could tell that I wasn't myself anymore. That my whole entire being had been carried out of me and put into someone else.Into her; the woman whom I had seen in the body of that tree, with her eyes closed and body elegantly folded as though somehow trapped in an eternal sleep, simply waiting to be reawakened.Now, I was inside her skin, moving with her memories, walking her footsteps as though they were my own. It was such a foreign feeling, and yet, something told me that this was what was meant to happen. That this was