All Chapters of The Rejected Luna’s Hidden Legacy : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

POV: Felicia "You shouldn't have brought the children."It wasn't a greeting. It wasn't even aimed at me … Revka's silver eyes had already slid past my shoulder, past the nursery guards, straight to the four small bundles wrapped against the cold. My hand found the strap of Orion's carrier before I'd decided to move it."Not because they're unsafe here." She caught herself fast, but not fast enough. "Because now they can be seen."I didn't ask what that meant. Not yet. I filed it away the way I'd learned to file everything since the vault … carefully, and with both hands ready.The camp had no throne, no banners, nothing that could be mistaken for a threat. My idea. I wanted the first meeting between the alliance and the Unbonded to happen on ground that belonged to neither of us. Orion stood at my left as Silvercrest's authority, stiff as a fence post. Lucien didn't stand behind me … he stood beside me, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine every time I shifted my weight, whic

POV: Felicia"I know what you did to my people."He'd walked into the northern camp alone … no delegation, no guards, clothes weathered and practical, made for someone who intended to leave fast if he needed to. My guards went rigid behind me. I lifted one hand and held them still."You'll have to be more specific."His expression didn't move. "You put our future in the hands of a Bond system that was used to erase us.""I didn't erase you.""No." His eyes dropped to my wrist. "But your ancestors did."I could have hidden behind that distinction. I didn't."You're right."Something flickered across his face … the first crack in a wall he'd built a long time ago.• • •He refused an escort into Silvercrest. I let him walk beside me instead, and he spent the whole road asking questions I didn't always have answers for. Who controlled the Bond infrastructure. Who could veto me. What happened when my children grew up and decided they didn't like the world I'd built for them."We haven't

POV: Felicia "Chosen Queen, I hope you don't mind. Your consort has been explaining Blackthorn's position rather convincingly." The word landed in the middle of the reception and just sat there. Not loud silence. The worse kind … the kind where I could feel every person in earshot deciding whether they'd actually heard it. Revka's eyebrows lifted. Daran went very still in that way that meant he was paying close attention. Orion nearly choked on his drink. I looked at Lucien. He looked at me, waiting, giving me the full three seconds to correct the man if I wanted to. I didn't. "He usually is convincing." The room exhaled and moved on. But something in it had shifted, and I could feel it settling over the rest of the night like dust that wouldn't lie back down. • • • By the second hour, people had started calling him Consort instead of Alpha of Blackthorn … some testing the word out loud, some using it deliberately, watching my face for a reaction. I understood, watching them d

POV: FeliciaOrion came into the half-finished ceremonial hall like a man walking into a fire he intended to put out with his bare hands.Not frightened. Furious."The Moon Priest order has withdrawn from the coronation."I felt the workers' hammers go quiet somewhere behind me, or maybe that was just my own pulse. "They agreed to crown me.""They agreed to crown the Chosen Queen." His jaw was tight enough to crack. "They never agreed to crown you."I didn't have an answer for that yet. I needed three weeks to earn one.• • •I'd assumed the coronation would be ceremony … old words, old crown, a formality laid over something already decided. Then the council brought out the Silvercrest crown, ancient and beautiful, etched with the names of rulers going back further than the Charter itself, and I understood exactly what it said the moment I looked at it.Silvercrest first. Alliance second."I don't want it."The room went silent enough to hear the candles burning. An adviser reminded

POV: FeliciaThe pounding on the door came before dawn, hard enough to rattle the frame.I'd been sitting by the window with a stack of council reports I wasn't really reading, the palace finally quiet after weeks of noise. Lucien reached the door first. Maren stood on the other side, snow still melting off her shoulders, her eyes wrecked in a way that had nothing to do with the cold.She'd come without an escort. Without warning."What happened?" Lucien asked.Her eyes went past him, straight to me."The baby spoke."Lucien assumed she meant babbling, the ordinary sounds of a growing child. Maren shook her head before he'd finished the thought."No. Words.""What words?"Her eyes filled. "Your name."• • •Three messages had left Blackthorn for Silvercrest. None had arrived."Intercepted?" I asked.Maren shook her head slowly. "Every time I tried to write what she was hearing, the ink disappeared off the page."I didn't know whether to believe that. I've learned not to disbelieve t