Todos os capítulos de THE LUNA HE TOOK FOR GRANTED: Capítulo 31 - Capítulo 40

The door exploded inward.Lyra barely had time to move.Mara grabbed her shoulder and dragged her sideways as a blade sliced through the space where Lyra's head had been.Wood splintered across the floor.Three men rushed into the house.Their faces were covered.Their clothes were dark, almost blending into the night.But each of them wore the same silver wolf emblem.The emerald eye caught the moonlight.Lyra's stomach dropped.The Shadow Guard.One of the men pointed toward her.“There!”Lyra didn't think.She ran.Mara caught her hand.“Not that way!”They rushed toward the back of the house, but another figure appeared through the rear entrance.Mara stopped abruptly.“We're surrounded.”Lyra's heart hammered against her ribs.The room suddenly felt too small.There were four men.Maybe more outside.And she had no idea how long they had been watching her.One of them stepped forward.“Give us the parchment.”Lyra tightened her grip.“You came all this way for a piece of paper?”

Nobody moved.The footsteps in the passage had stopped, but the silence they left behind felt heavier than the noise.Lyra looked at Aldren.Then at Kael.Finally, at Mara.“Tell me.”Her voice was steady, though her hands were not.“What happened to my mother?”Aldren glanced toward the passage.“Not here.”Kael stepped forward. “You don't get to decide that.”Aldren's eyes shifted to him.“I knew your grandfather.”Kael's expression hardened.“And you disappeared before my father took the throne.”“I didn't disappear.”“You were declared dead.”“I allowed them to believe it.”Kael stared at him.“Why?”“Because staying alive was the only way I could keep Elena's enemies from finding what she had hidden.”Lyra's heart beat faster.“What did she hide?”Aldren looked at her.“You.”The answer unsettled her more than she expected.“I was a child.”“Exactly.”Mara moved closer to Lyra.“Your mother knew they would use you if they found out who you were.”“Who I was?” Lyra repeated. “I wa

The howls came again.Closer this time.Lyra stood with Elena's letter pressed against her chest, listening as the sound rolled through the underground passage.Dozens of wolves.Kael turned toward Rowan.“How many?”“Too many to be a patrol.”Aldren moved toward the passage.“They're not here for a fight.”Kael looked at him. “Then what are they here for?”Aldren didn't answer.Lyra looked down at the envelope in her hand.Her mother's handwriting stared back at her.After everything she'd just learned, opening it felt strangely frightening.What if the letter contained something she wasn't ready to know?She had spent years wishing for one more conversation with Elena.Now she had something close to it.And suddenly, she wasn't sure she wanted to hear what her mother had to say.Mara touched her arm.“You don't have to open it tonight.”Lyra shook her head.“No.”She looked at the envelope again.“I've waited long enough.”She broke the seal.The paper inside was folded twice.Her h

For several seconds, nobody moved.Mara's words seemed to settle over the room, heavier than the dust hanging in the old house.Darian wasn't just someone your mother knew. He was your mother's brother.Lyra stared at her.“Her brother?”Mara nodded slowly.“My mother had a brother?”“You had an uncle,” Mara corrected. “Darian Voss.”Lyra looked down at the documents spread across the table.Elena Voss.Darian Voss.The same surname.She had seen it before, but somehow the truth had been hiding in plain sight.Kael stepped closer, his eyes fixed on the birth record.“Why would Elena warn her against her own brother?”Mara's expression tightened.“That is the question I hoped we wouldn't have to answer tonight.”A cold silence followed.Aldren picked up the silver key.His thumb brushed over the tiny K engraved into its head.“I've seen this before.”Lyra immediately turned toward him.“Where?”Aldren didn't answer at once.He looked toward the far wall of the house instead.“There was

The cellar seemed to hold its breath.Lyra read the sentence again.If you have found the second key, then Darian has already failed to stop you.Her fingers tightened around the letter.“How did my mother know?”No one answered.Kael took the photograph from her carefully and studied it.Elena stood beside a man near the old border house. They looked younger, but there was no mistaking the place.The man beside Elena was not Aldren.Not Darian.And not anyone Lyra recognized.“Who is he?” Rowan asked.Aldren stared at the photograph.His silence lasted too long.“You know him.”Aldren finally nodded.“Yes.”Lyra stepped closer.“Who?”Aldren turned the photograph over.There was nothing else written beneath the message.“He was one of the last people I trusted before Mooncrest changed.”“That doesn't tell me anything.”“He was a member of my council.”Lyra looked at him sharply.“A Shadow Guard?”“No.”Aldren's voice dropped.“Before the Shadow Guard existed.”The room became still.