All Chapters of Too Skinny To Be Luna : Chapter 41 - Chapter 47

Lyra's POVFor once, nothing demands our attention.No training scheduled, no Elders requesting audiences, no letters arriving with unfamiliar seals to unsettle an otherwise ordinary day. Kaelan finds me reading in the eastern garden — the same overgrown corner with the broken fountain, though someone's finally repaired it properly, water trickling in a steady, pleasant rhythm now instead of the weak gurgle it managed weeks ago."May I join you?" he asks, though he's already settling onto the grass beside my bench before I've fully answered."You're already sitting down.""A formality," he says, stretching out comfortably, hands folded behind his head, looking entirely too pleased with himself for someone who's just invaded my quiet reading spot uninvited.I return to my book, though I find myself more aware of him than the actual words on the page — the easy way he's sprawled in the afternoon sun, the faint, contented sigh he lets out as he closes his eyes against the light."You loo

Unknown POVThe chamber beneath the ruins has changed since Grath first offered his tentative leadership weeks ago — more organized now, torches replaced with proper lanterns, the loose circle of frightened remnants reshaped into something resembling actual structure. A dozen has become two dozen. Word travels, apparently, even among an organization that spent weeks believing itself finished.I stand at the head of what's become, in practice if not yet in formal declaration, my own war table, watching the assembled Council members settle into their places with the particular deference that comes from having witnessed genuine competence after months of drift and uncertainty."Selene's reports have been useful," Grath says, standing near my right hand, the position he's earned through weeks of careful, patient loyalty since the night I first stepped into that guttering torchlight. "She's embedded herself within the Priestess's research circle. Access to the bloodline records, direct obs

Lyra's POVThe scout report arrives three days after the Priestess's horrifying revelation about the extraction ritual, and I can tell from the messenger's face, breathless and pale at the war room's entrance, that whatever he's carrying isn't going to make anyone's morning easier."Border patrol spotted movement along the northern tree line," he says, still catching his breath. "Multiple wolves, organized formation, deliberately avoiding the main roads. We tracked them for nearly an hour before they slipped out of range.""How many?" Kaelan asks, already leaning over the war table's map."At least a dozen, possibly more. Disciplined movement — this wasn't a random pack of scavengers or opportunistic rogues. They moved like they'd trained together. Like they had a specific objective."Draven's jaw tightens. "Did anyone get close enough for a proper look? Markings, colors, anything identifiable?"The scout hesitates, something uncertain crossing his face. "One of them," he says slowly.