All Chapters of Bound by the Cursed Moon: Chapter 231 - Chapter 240

Point of View: Kieran Ashveil“Her name is Marisol Vane, and yes, Alpha heir, before you ask, she is Malachi Vane’s niece, which is exactly the complication none of us needed tonight.”Elara said it flatly, dropping a folder onto the war table hard enough that the candle beside it flickered, wax spattering across the wood in a thin dark line. I stared at the name written across the top page like it might rearrange itself into something less impossible if I looked long enough, but the letters stayed exactly where they were, stubborn and plain.“That cannot be a coincidence,” I said.“It is not,” Elara said, folding her arms. “Vane’s own bloodline carries the Vaelwood mark. Ysolde confirmed it against the old records this afternoon. He has spent a decade hunting guardians without ever realizing one was sitting at his own family table selling flowers in the border market.”Alaric leaned over the table, his jaw tight in the way I had learned meant he was already three steps ahead of the

View: Kieran Ashveil“You have been staring at that fire for an hour, Dorian, and it has not once stared back, so whatever answer you are hoping to find in it, I do not think it lives there.”I dropped onto the bench outside the border post across from him, tired enough that even the cold night air felt like a small mercy after the day we had all just survived. The fire between us had burned down to a low, steady orange, and I let its warmth settle into my hands while I waited for Dorian to decide whether he wanted company or silence. Sable sat close beside him, near enough that their shoulders touched, and neither of them moved to put distance between themselves when I sat down, which told me more about where things stood between my oldest friend and Rhen’s sharpest tracker than either of them had ever said aloud.“I keep thinking about what Ysolde said,” Dorian admitted, not looking up from the flames, his jaw tight in a way I recognized from years of watching him carry things he re

Point of View: Kieran Ashveil“What do you mean they are not ours anymore, Sable, because those are Ashveil colors, and Ashveil colors do not just decide to stop meaning what they have always meant.”Sable did not look away from the riders closing fast along the east road, her jaw tight with the particular focus she gets when a tracker’s instincts start screaming louder than logic can keep up with, her eyes narrowed against the morning glare. “I mean I recognize the lead rider, Kieran. Corven. He was reassigned to border patrol two months ago after your father caught him passing information to a Duskmoor contact that turned out to be nothing. Except I do not think it was nothing. I think it was a test, and I think he passed it for the wrong side.”My face went hard, something colder than anger settling behind my eyes at the thought of my own father’s man turned against us, a betrayal that felt personal in a way the hunters’ fire had not. “If Corven is riding under my father’s colors

Point of View: Kieran Ashveil“Do not touch her, Corven, I am warning you for the last time, because whatever you think you are following orders for, this is still the man who taught you your first patrol route, and I would rather not remember you as the one who forced my hand.”Corven sat astride his horse at the mouth of the river path, a dozen riders fanned out behind him, all wearing colors that should have meant safety and instead felt like the worst kind of lie, banners I had saluted my entire life now hanging over men who meant to hurt the people I loved most. His face was unreadable, carefully blank in a way that told me he had rehearsed this moment more than once, had turned it over in his mind until the horror of it had worn smooth.“I am not following orders, Kieran,” Corven said quietly. “I am following the only path that keeps my daughter alive. You do not know what they showed me. What they promised would happen to her if I refused.”“Then tell me,” I said, keeping my vo

Point of View: Kieran Ashveil“Marisol, open your eyes, please, because I need to see that whatever just happened down there did not take the version of you who was brave enough to walk toward it in the first place.”The light had faded as fast as it came, the seam in the earth sealing itself closed with a sound like a held breath finally released, a soft settling groan of stone and soil, and Marisol lay against the riverbank with her father’s arm braced beneath her shoulders, both of them pale and shaking but, impossibly, still breathing.“I am here,” Marisol whispered, blinking slowly up at the sky like she was relearning what daylight looked like, her voice thin but present. “I am here, Rhen. I do not think it took anything from me. I think it just wanted to know if I would come.”Corven made a low, broken sound beside her, some mixture of relief and grief tangled together too tightly to separate, his hand still gripping his daughter’s like he could not quite believe she was real.