All Chapters of Bound by the Cursed Moon: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

Female Lead POV: Rhen Thornwolf "Rhen, come look at the sky, and then tell me honestly whether you still believe your grandmother's promise was only a story someone told to frighten children." Sable's voice pulled me out from beside my mother's cot, where I had spent the last hour watching her breathe, steady now, the healer's careful stitching holding despite the blood she had lost protecting me. I stepped outside into evening air gone strange and heavy, and stopped completely still at the sight waiting above the tree line, the sky bleeding from gold into a deep, unmistakable red that no ordinary sunset had ever worn in my nineteen years of watching them. "It is early," I whispered. "The red moon was never supposed to rise until the trial's aftermath fully settled, not on the same night as the fight itself." "Maybe it does not care about our timeline," Sable said quietly, standing beside me, her own gaze fixed on the horizon with an expression I had rarely seen on her, something c

Female Lead POV: Rhen Thornwolf"You should not have read from that journal. Some promises are written to stay buried, and now that the words are spoken out loud, they cannot be put back in the dark."My mother's voice was thin, roughened by blood loss and fear, but the warning in it landed harder than anything Dorian had said all night. She was sitting up against the cot cushions the healer had propped behind her, her hand pressed to the bandaged wound at her side, and her eyes were fixed on me like she was seeing a ghost instead of her own daughter."Mama, you should be resting," I said, crossing the small healing room to kneel beside her. "The healer said the stitches need at least a full day before you try to sit up like this.""The healer does not know what I know," she said, and there was a rawness in her voice I had never heard before, not even the night she found out I had gone into Ashveil territory alone. "Rhen, I heard what Kieran read. Every word of it. I was not asleep, I

Female Lead POV: Rhen Thornwolf"There is a version of this story I have never told you, Rhen, and I think if I do not tell it to you tonight, I never will."My mother's voice had steadied since the day before, color returning to her face in a way that let the healer finally allow her a full sitting position without wincing through it. I had brought her tea from the kitchens, the same chamomile blend she used to make me drink as a child whenever nightmares kept me from sleeping, and she wrapped both hands around the cup like she needed the warmth of it to get through whatever came next."You do not have to tell me anything you are not ready for," I said, settling into the chair beside her cot. "I have waited nineteen years, Mama. I can wait a little longer if you need it.""No," she said, shaking her head. "I have let you wait long enough already, and every day I stayed quiet, I told myself it was to protect you. I am not sure that was ever true. I think some of it was to protect myse

Female Lead POV: Rhen Thornwolf"If you follow me tonight, Sable, I promise I will never forgive you for it. This is something I need to do alone, before Kieran decides I am too fragile to be trusted with my own choices."Sable stood in the doorway of the cottage with her arms folded, the lantern light catching the stubborn set of her jaw, and I could tell by the way she was not moving that my warning had done nothing at all to change her mind. "You are going to the ruins in the middle of the night, less than a day after collapsing from a vision none of us understood, and you expect me to simply wave you off toward danger without a word.""I expect you to trust me," I said, tying my cloak tighter against the chill already creeping through the open door. "Kieran and Dorian want to wrap me in patrols and locked rooms until they decide the danger has passed. I cannot live like that, Sable. I never could, and I am not about to start now.""This is not about doubting you," Sable said, soft

Lead POV: Rhen Thornwolf"Someone is already inside the walls, and you are asking me to rest, as if resting will keep anyone I love safe while a traitor walks these halls unnoticed."My mother's hands were shaking as she pressed a cup of bitter tea into mine, and for the first time in my life I saw real fear behind her eyes instead of the careful blankness she always wore whenever the Ashveil name came up in conversation. I was sitting upright now, the worst of the vision's grip finally loosening its hold on my body, though the ache behind my eyes still throbbed in slow, warning pulses."You heard what Maren told them," my mother said, sitting beside me on the narrow cot, her voice barely above a whisper even though we were alone. "You said it yourself, in whatever state the vision left you in. Someone inside the Ashveil walls is working with Vane.""I do not remember saying it," I admitted, my throat raw. "I do not remember much of anything after I hit the ground.""That is how it w