All Chapters of A Luna's Vengeance : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

Five years had passed since my formal withdrawal from active confederation leadership. The supernatural world I returned to after extended travels bore little resemblance to the fragile alliance I had helped establish. The Continental Confederation had evolved into something mature, confident, and fundamentally independent of its founders.I walked through the expanded prairie amphitheater where the Continental Council now met quarterly rather than in constant emergency session. The structure itself reflected the confederation's evolution permanent buildings replacing temporary facilities, sophisticated governance chambers instead of crisis coordination posts."Selene!" Lyanna called from across the courtyard, approaching with the easy confidence of someone who had grown into her Eclipse Covenant abilities rather than being consumed by them. "We didn't expect you until next month's advisory session.""Curiosity," I admitted. "Wanted to observe the new council structure without the for

The train rattled through the Cascade Mountains, carrying Selene farther from the confederation's polished headquarters than she'd been in years. She pressed her forehead against the cold window, watching pine forests blur into gray mist. In her lap sat three leather-bound journals blank pages waiting to be filled with the stories no one else bothered to record.Forty-two felt both ancient and impossibly young. The silver threading through her dark hair had appeared suddenly after Kael's death, as if grief had crystallized into something visible. She'd expected his passing to feel like liberation. Instead, it felt like the final page of a chapter she'd been trying to rewrite for two decades.The confederation didn't need her anymore. That was the point, wasn't it? She'd built something that could stand without its founder, something that wouldn't crumble when she inevitably stepped back. Council meetings continued without her input. Treaties were negotiated by diplomats who'd learned

The train could only take her so far. The final approach to Stonehold required three days of hiking through terrain that had no interest in accommodating travelers. Selene's coordination abilities, so useful for navigating social complexity, felt almost absurd here. The mountains didn't coordinate. They simply were, with a permanence that made her twenty years of institution-building feel like a child's sandcastle.Her guide was a young earth elemental named Petra, who moved through the rocky landscape like water through stone slowly, inexorably, reshaping herself around obstacles rather than trying to overcome them."You're impatient," Petra observed on the second day, when Selene paused to catch her breath on a steep incline."I'm forty-two, not twenty-two," Selene panted. "My body has opinions about mountain climbing.""Your body is fine. Your mind is impatient." Petra placed a hand flat against the cliff face beside them. "You keep trying to rush the mountain. The mountain doesn't

The confederation headquarters looked different. Or perhaps Selene was different, and the building simply revealed what had always been there: rigidity masquerading as permanence, control disguised as cooperation.The structure rose twelve stories in steel and glass, every angle precise, every surface reflective. It had been designed to project authority and unity a physical manifestation of the confederation's values. Selene had approved the architectural plans herself, fifteen years ago.Now, after months in communities that grew their buildings or carved them from living mountains or let the tide determine their boundaries, the headquarters felt aggressive. Insistent. A fist raised against the sky, declaring human dominance over the landscape.She stood on the plaza, journals heavy in her pack, and wondered if she'd made a terrible mistake."Selene?" A familiar voice, sharp with surprise. "We thought you wouldn't be back until next month."Marcus Chen, the confederation's current D

The Verdant Archive's independence forced a kind of resourcefulness Selene hadn't needed in decades. There were no confederation budgets, no institutional infrastructure, no administrative staff handling logistics while researchers focused on their work. Everything had to be built from scratch or rather, grown organically, like the communities they studied.Funding came first. Selene's personal wealth, accumulated over forty-two years and largely untouched during her confederation tenure, provided initial capital. But sustaining twelve researchers in long-term field work required more creative solutions."There are foundations," Amara explained during their first planning meeting in the warehouse, "that specifically fund research challenging dominant paradigms. Alternative knowledge systems, marginalized perspectives, counter-hegemonic scholarship.""You're describing academic activism," Professor Okonkwo observed."Is that a problem?" Amara's tone was challenging."Not for me. But we