Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Rejected Luna’s Hidden Legacy : Kabanata 81 - Kabanata 90

POV: Felicia"They're under us."I looked up from the intelligence table. Cassian tapped the map … a point beneath the eastern palace wall."The cell. Four people. One safehouse. Less than a mile out." A beat. "They've been there for years."Close enough to see the palace lights from their windows. Close enough to have watched us the whole time."How did we miss them?""Because we were looking for an army." He tapped the map again. "They were four people waiting for someone to tell them to move." And underneath the safehouse ran an old diplomatic route … the same one our eastern messengers used. They hadn't just been hiding.They'd been listening.• • •Three days of quiet hunting had worn all of us thin … Blackthorn contacts, Daran's knowledge of rogue communications, Taren's trade routes, Revka's old records, Lucien reading disturbances through the Bond, me reading everything myself because I couldn't make myself stop.Lucien caught me at dawn buried in reports. "You haven't slept

POV: FeliciaKnock. Knock. Knock.Corin reached beneath the table before I could stop myself grabbing her wrist."Don't.""You just told me neither of us gets the final word.""I didn't mean the floor."The symbol beneath the table glowed faint, and for one terrible second the Bond reached toward me … not a message. A question. Then it went still."We are not putting supernatural archaeology into the arbitration treaty," Corin said."Agreed."We left. I looked back once. The symbol had gone dark. I didn't tell her what I'd heard underneath it … not words. A heartbeat.• • •By morning the hall was chaos in the best way … maps, spilled ink, Mara furious over toll exemptions, Sella convinced Silvercrest wanted a trade empire, Daran distrustful of every Moon Priest clause, Taren asking whether shared access secretly meant shared control. I liked it, until Corin slid the first draft toward me.Clauses letting the arbitration council suspend local law. Temporarily."Temporarily is still

POV: Felicia"You should sit down."I stayed standing, arms folded. "Tell me everything."Cassian hesitated."You said three weeks. I assume there's more.""There is.""Then stop protecting me.""You should sit down first.""No.""Felicia.""If what you're about to tell me requires sitting, I already hate it."He set another bundle of pages on my desk. "Seren has been reading about Lucien.""I know.""No. You know the part that scared you. You don't know the part that should scare you more."I sat.• • •Oren had compared Seren's annotations against all seven previous Chosen Queens. A pattern ran through every record … not identical events, but the same shape of test. The consort's identity eventually tangles with hers, his presence starts shaping how other leaders read her, and then someone offers him a way out.Not leave her because you don't love her.Leave her because you love her."That's the challenge?""That's the beginning of it."• • •Oren laid out the language itself …

POV: FeliciaThe howl was still fading from the walls when the voice came again, closer this time, threading through the nursery doorway like it had every right to be there."Lucien."He went completely still. Not fear for himself … I'd seen that look before, on a battlefield, and this wasn't it. This was recognition.He put the children behind him without a word.I stepped up beside him instead of behind. "Who is that?"He didn't answer. The voice came again."You took twenty years to make the same mistake your father made."His wolf surged under his skin, and he shoved me back with one arm.I shoved it off just as fast. "Don't.""Felicia…""If you think I'm standing behind you while someone walks into my palace, you haven't been paying attention.""This isn't about proving you can fight.""And this isn't about proving you're the only one who can protect people."The window at the end of the corridor exploded before either of us could finish it. Guards ran past. A black-cloaked shape

POV: FeliciaThe war room doors slammed open. "Tell me," Lucien said, already at the head of the table, "the child did not just see another door.""She did."Nobody spoke. Seren lowered the ancient map she'd been studying. "Which door?""The third horizon."The Frost City Elder's face changed. Not fear. Recognition. Worse.• • •The birthday decorations were still hanging outside … ribbons on the columns, a half-deflated balloon drifting near the garden, a wooden horse abandoned under the fountain. Yesterday we'd celebrated a child turning three. This morning we were staring down something no Chosen record had ever named.I set both hands on the table. "The child wasn't describing a metaphor. She pointed toward the eastern crossing."Corin straightened. "The water crossing?""Yes.""That's my territory. And there's been movement there." Boats, he admitted, fishing vessels reporting lights beneath the water for six weeks. Not lanterns. Something brighter."Why wasn't this reported?"