All Chapters of AFTER DIVORCE, I BECAME A LUNA: Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

Chapter 91: The Longest Day of Silence"Say it again," Mom whispered. "Slowly. Please.""She is alive, Mom," I said. "Dad's mother. Veyra saw her walk into the second valley twenty years ago. She was burned, but she was alive. And she has been singing ever since."We were sitting on the edge of Mom's bed, behind a locked door. It was late afternoon, and I had run all the way from the Hollow. My lungs burned. My knees were scraped. I had told the story twice, and my voice had given out by the end.Mom had listened without saying a single word. When I finished, she sat very still. Her hand was pressed over her mouth. Her eyes were huge."Xavier's mother," she said at last. "Alira.""You knew her name?""He said it once. Years ago. When we were first together. We were lying under a tree, and he said, my mother's name was Alira, and she used to hum when she cooked. Then he went quiet and we never spoke about her again." Mom pressed her fingers to her eyes. "He has carried this alone for t

Chapter 93: The Drums Come Early"Everyone inside the walls!" Dad roared. "Now! Bar the doors! Move!"His Alpha voice rolled across the courtyard like thunder, and three hundred people ran. The silver girls poured down from the battlements. The old Lunas were helped through the doors by younger ones. Jo grabbed Liam's hand and dragged him toward the kitchen, shouting something about pots.I stood in the middle of the chaos with Ash beside me, shaking. Mara and Jessa had carried him back between them. Nobody had hurt him. Not yet."Tie him up," Torin said coldly."No," I said."He sold us to the Court.""They have his little girl." I looked at Torin. "Would you have done differently?"Torin opened his mouth. He shut it. He looked at his feet."Put him in the kitchen," I said. "With Candice. They can wash pots together.""Josie—""Please. We have no time."Dad appeared at my elbow. His face was grim. "Tell me what you know."I told him fast. The whistle. The message. The hour. Dad liste

Chapter 95"Good evening, Alpha Holt," said the old man in the black coat. "What a lovely display. I have not seen anything like it in nine hundred years."He said it in a soft, pleasant voice, as if we were guests at a garden party. He tipped his head, and the moonlight caught his thick white hair. Behind him, hundreds of his soldiers knelt in the smoking dust, still dazed.Dad set me down gently on the wall. His hand stayed on my shoulder. "Marrow," he said."You know me. I am flattered.""I know you by your letters.""Ah. Then you know I am a man of manners." Marrow clasped his hands behind his back. "I do apologize for the noise. It was never meant to be so loud. I had hoped you would see sense and close the gate on your own.""You tried to break my family with a drum," Dad said. His voice was ice. "That is not manners.""It is persuasion. A different thing." Marrow smiled again. His eyes were pale blue and very kind. That was the worst part. He looked like he would give you a boi

Chapter 97:"Stay close," Candice whispered. "Do not look at the mirrors too long. They like to show you things.""What kind of things?" Caelum asked."Things you would rather forget.""I do not have anything I would rather forget. I am twenty-four days old.""Then you are very lucky," said Candice.It was dawn. Seven of us stood in front of the split door at the back of old Tree. Mom and Dad. Me, with my slate hanging round my neck. Candice, with the black key clutched to her chest. Lumen and Rowan, holding hands. Caelum, in boy shape, bouncing on his toes. And Mara, with her arms crossed, her silver hair tied back in a braid.We had left Jo in charge of the kitchen. She had taken the job very seriously, and Liam had saluted her.Cole had stayed too. He stood by the well, a small grey figure in the pink morning, watching us go. He had asked if he could come. Dad had said no. Not out of anger. Just no."Take care of the gate," Dad told him quietly, as we passed. "Keep it open. Keep th

"Xavier?" the woman whispered. "Is that you? You have such a deep voice."Dad stopped humming. His whole body went rigid. He was kneeling on the silver grass, holding her scarred hand, and for a long, long moment he could not breathe."Mama," he said.Her eyes opened.They were dark brown, warm and tired, the color of tea. She blinked at him slowly, as if the light hurt. She was very pale. Her face looked fragile, thin as old paper. But when she looked at him, something in it lit from the inside."You are so big," she murmured. "I left you in your nightshirt. You were so small.""I was nine.""You were nine," she agreed, and her mouth trembled into a smile. "And now you have a beard."He made a sound that was half a laugh and half a sob. He bent over her, shaking, and pressed his face into her shoulder. She lifted her scarred hand, slowly, as if it weighed a hundred pounds, and laid it on his hair."Hush," she said softly. "Hush, my darling. I am here."I looked away. I did not want t