All Chapters of Bound By Moonlight: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Emry’s POVThe forest swallowed the keep’s last lanterns one by one until only the sound of our breaths stitched the dark together. Pine and damp earth, leather creaking, the soft clink of Lira’s blades. We moved under a roof of branches that turned the moon to shards.Braxton kept to my left, close enough that the bond brushed my skin like a steady hand on my back. Eastin ghosted ahead with a hunter’s quiet, pausing at every fork to listen, to scent. Mirae handled the horses—gloved fingers on reins, a low murmur that calmed them when an owl cut the night with a single, sorrowing call.We didn’t speak until the keep was only a memory behind the trees.“North ridge,” Eastin whispered back, pointing to the darker line of pines that rose like a sleeping beast. “We follow the old streambed. Fewer patrols.”“Fewer tracks,” Lira added. “If they follow, they’ll have to guess.”“If?” Braxton muttered.We moved faster.The cold made my teeth ache. It should have cleared the fever from my bones

Braxton’s POVNight pressed close around the old tower, the air thick with pine sap and the faint hiss of insects waking in the dark. We’d made camp at the base, a ring of bedrolls and the small comfort of a shuttered lantern. The flame inside barely breathed—Lira’s ward would hide its light, but it still made me nervous. Everything about this forest felt eager for a reason to look our way.Eastin was still awake, sitting on a broken stair with Lira beside him. She was cleaning her short blade with quick, efficient strokes. He was talking too much, the way he did when he needed to keep his hands busy.“You never stop moving,” she murmured.“Habit,” he said. “If I sit still too long, I start thinking.”“Dangerous,” she said, but the edge of her mouth softened.I turned away, giving them the illusion of privacy. The two of them fit together better than either would admit: his steadiness, her precision. She carried herself like someone born to command—eyes always scanning, senses always

Emry’s POVMorning came gray and close, the kind of light that felt halfhearted about being dawn. The tower walls breathed damp and moss. Her dreams still clung to her skin — her mother’s voice, the look in her father’s eyes, and Veylan’s words echoing like chains dragged through soil.Eastin was already awake, crouched by the firepit, coaxing a faint flame from damp tinder. The smell of smoke was oddly comforting after the night she’d lived twice.“You look like you didn’t sleep at all,” he said without looking up.Emry sat beside him, drawing her knees to her chest. “I saw them.”He stilled. “Mother and Father?”She nodded, throat tightening. “He has them, East. They’re alive, but—” Her voice faltered. “He’s hurting them. He wanted me to see.”He kept his hands busy, feeding twigs to the flame as if he could build a wall of light between them and her words. “Dreams can lie.”“Not this one.”Eastin looked at her then, really looked. The quiet in his eyes was worse than disbelief. “Wh

Elder Mira’s POVThe chamber of the moon was silent except for the slow drip of melted wax. Twelve candles burned in a perfect circle, each flame motionless — a sign of wards drawn too tightly.Elder Mira stood at the center, palms pressed to the basin carved from pale stone. The water within should have been silver and still. Instead, it churned, shadow threading through light like oil over milk.“She’s close,” she said quietly. “Closer than any of us predicted.”Across from her, Elder Corren leaned on his staff, knuckles white. “Then the Bloodwood stirs for her, not the other way around. The girl is unbalanced.”“The girl,” Mira corrected, “is the goddess’s vessel. Unbalanced because we made her so.”A murmur rippled around the circle.Elder Lysia, her robes pristine as frost, tilted her head. “The goddess made her dual. We merely guided what would have destroyed her.”“Guided?” Mira snapped, turning on her. “We cut her off from her own power. We caged half of what she was born to b

Mirae’s POVThe night pressed close, velvet and cold, whispering with the kind of silence that knew secrets.The others slept — all except her. Braxton’s deep breathing rose and fell beside Emry’s quieter rhythm, their fingers just barely touching in sleep. Eastin’s silhouette was still against the firelight, a shadow keeping watch. Lira had vanished into the treeline for her patrol.Mirae sat alone, cloak drawn tight, the fire’s last glow painting her hands in gold. The shard at her throat pulsed faintly, warm against her skin, like the heartbeat of someone she could no longer tell from herself.You’re thinking of me again.The voice slid through her thoughts like smoke. Soft. Familiar. Beautiful.“Verrat.”My name on your lips always sounds like forgiveness.She smiled faintly, eyes closing. “You shouldn’t be able to reach me from here.”You carry me, little wolf. The goddess cannot unmake what’s already bound.Bound. The word echoed. It always did. The first time he’d said it, she’