All Chapters of Wrath Of A Scorned Luna : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Anna’s screams follow us through the corridors like ghosts, and I want to stop, want to help, but Donald is already there with the healers and we have our own children to save. The rational part of my brain knows we can’t save everyone, knows we have to make impossible choices, but the rest of me feels like I’m abandoning her even though she’s the one who destroyed my life not so long ago. Funny how quickly enemies become allies when you’re all bleeding. “We can’t leave her,” I say, even though I’m still moving toward the stables, even though my feet won’t stop carrying me toward my children. “The healers will do what they can,” Alistair says, but his voice is tight because he knows as well as I do that healers can’t fix magic, can’t stop whatever Morgana is doing to Anna from miles away. We’re gathering in the courtyard now and the handful of warriors willing to ride into almost certain death looks smaller than I’d hoped. Twenty, maybe twenty-five fighters at most, and half of th

The castle looks like it’s been rotting from the inside out for decades, all crumbling stone and twisted metal and windows that stare like empty eye sockets. The moment we cross what used to be the main gates, I feel the air change, become thick and wrong like trying to breathe through wet cloth.“Something’s not right,” I start to say, but the words come out distorted and when I turn to tell Alistair he’s not there anymore.I’m alone in a corridor that definitely wasn’t here a second ago, stone walls pressing in on both sides and torches that burn with flames the wrong color. My hand goes to the blade at my hip and finds nothing, no weapons, no armor, just the thin dress I was wearing which is suddenly torn and bloodstained in ways it wasn’t before.“Alistair!” I call out, and my voice echoes back wrong, layered with other voices that might be mine or might be something else entirely.A figure appears at the end of the corridor and my heart leaps because I think it’s him, think I’ve

I wake up to the sound of children laughing, which should be comforting except the laughter is wrong somehow, layered with something that makes my skin crawl.My whole body aches like I’ve been beaten with hammers and when I try to sit up the world spins violently enough that I have to lie back down and wait for my vision to clear. The last thing I remember is the Void Born draining me, Donald starting the ritual, light everywhere.“Mabel, don’t move,” Alistair’s voice, strained and careful in a way that immediately puts me on edge.I force my eyes open properly and see him crouched a few feet away, his body positioned between me and something I can’t quite see yet. Donald is beside him, hands raised and glowing with defensive magic.“What happened?” I manage to croak out.“The ritual worked,” Donald says, not taking his eyes off whatever they’re watching. “The birth magic hit the Void Born hard, disrupting its manifestation enough that it couldn’t maintain physical form.”“So we won?

Elara’s scream cuts off abruptly and when she opens her eyes again they’re swirling with the same darkness as the children’s, except worse somehow because she’s an adult with an adult’s strength and an adult’s capacity for violence. The transformation happens fast, her body changing, growing larger as the Void Born’s power floods through her. Her scars start glowing with dark energy and her weapons dissolve into shadows that reform as extensions of her hands, long claws made of nothing and hunger. “Thank you for the vessel,” she says, except it’s not quite her voice anymore, it’s layered with that terrible ancient quality. “This one is much more useful than the children. So much anger to work with. So much pain to fuel us.” She turns those dark eyes on Alistair and smiles. “Hello, husband,” the thing wearing Elara’s face says. “Did you miss me?” Alistair shifts into his massive black wolf without hesitation and I follow, my silver wolf emerging even though I’m running on fumes an

We’re preparing to leave the ruins when my consciousness fractures.One second I’m standing there holding the Void-baby and arguing with Donald about whether we’re all going to die, and the next I’m somewhere else entirely, falling through layers of reality that shouldn’t exist.I land in what looks like the inside of something vast and dark, except it’s not a physical place, it’s more like being inside a thought or a memory that isn’t mine.“Where am I?” I ask, and my voice echoes wrong.Everywhere and nowhere, a familiar voice answers, and I spin to find myself face to face with Kate.Except she’s not solid, she’s translucent, more suggestion than substance, like a reflection in disturbed water.“You’re dead,” I say. “I watched you die twice.”Kate’s ghost or shade or whatever she is smiles that sharp smile I remember too well.“Death is more complicated than you think, stepdaughter,” she says. “Especially when you’ve spent centuries playing with forces beyond mortality. Parts of me