All Chapters of Second Chance for the Discarded Luna : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

"Say that again," I said, certain I'd misheard him."Marcus," Weston repeated, something entirely too pleased with himself sitting behind his careful, formal composure. "He's requested a formal audience with your father. My contact confirms he departed Blackthorn three days ago. He should arrive within the week.""Why," I said, "would Marcus request an audience with my father. Now. After everything.""I couldn't say precisely," Weston said, though the small, satisfied curl at the corner of his mouth suggested he had theories he was considerably enjoying keeping to himself. "Perhaps the recent chaos at Blackthorn has finally convinced him that Ravenspire's cooperation matters more than his pride. Perhaps he wishes to discuss the Thornveil threat directly, given how closely our two kingdoms' troubles have become entangled.""Or perhaps," I said, sharper than I intended, "you simply wanted an excuse to deliver this news to me personally, at this hour, knowing exactly how it would land."

Rhys returned two days later, road-worn but steady, and I met him at the stables before he'd even finished dismounting."You left in the middle of the night," I said, torn between relief and lingering irritation, "with a note three sentences long.""I know." He caught my hands, something apologetic softening his exhausted features. "I should have woken you first. I wasn't thinking clearly. I only knew I needed to reach him before he arrived here and complicated everything for you without warning.""And did you?" I asked. "Reach him?""I did." He guided me toward the quiet bench near the stable yard, away from the stableboys already fussing over his horse. "Elena, I need to tell you something, and I think it's going to surprise you.""Try me," I said. "Very little about Marcus surprises me anymore.""He's not coming to reclaim you," Rhys said plainly. "He told me that himself, directly, without me needing to ask. He said he gave up any right to that the moment he called you worthless i

"You want us to raise Damon and Lyra's daughter," Kellan said, disbelief plain in his voice, once Marcus and his party had been shown to guest quarters and the formal audience had properly concluded. "Elena, think about what you're actually considering.""I'm considering an infant," I said, "who did nothing wrong beyond being born to two people who betrayed everyone around them. That's not a complicated moral question, Kellan. That's simply mercy.""Mercy is complicated when it involves raising a child inside the very kingdom her mother orchestrated attacks against," my father said, though something thoughtful rather than dismissive colored his tone. "I'm not opposed outright, Elena. I want to understand fully what you're proposing before I commit this kingdom to it."I paced the length of his study, the question having occupied my thoughts through most of the evening already. "She'd be raised as any other child," I said. "Not hidden, not treated with suspicion. Simply given the chanc

"No." My father said it before I'd finished reading the letter aloud to the council. "Absolutely not.""You haven't heard what I'd propose," I said."I heard the line about carrying your future, and that's all the proposal I need to refuse." He pushed back from the head of the long table, and the candles along the wall shivered. "She knows what you carry, Elena. She told you so in a storeroom, to your face. This isn't a parley. It's bait with a bow on it.""It's both," I said. "Which is why it's worth walking into."Doran grunted from his chair, his bandaged arm propped on the table. "The girl has a point, Your Majesty. Whatever Ashra's planning, she's tipped her hand by asking. You don't request a meeting with someone you're about to ambush unless you want them to arrive nervous.""Or unless you want them to arrive at all," Kellan said. "Isn't that the point of an ambush?""Then we choose the ground," Rhys said, from where he stood behind my chair. He hadn't sat once since the counci

I found him thirty yards past the tree line, on his back in the frost, one hand still curled around his blade."Rhys." I dropped to my knees beside him, hands hovering, afraid to touch and afraid not to. "Rhys, look at me."His eyes cracked open, unfocused, then found my face. "Elena." A ghost of a smile. "Told you I'd try not to make promises I couldn't keep.""You're not dying," I said, half command, half plea, already tearing at his sleeve to find the wound. A long gash along his forearm, deep but clean, and a darker stain blooming low on his side where a blade had gone in at an angle. "Marcus, I need you."He was already there, kneeling on Rhys's other side despite the ruin of his own shoulder, pressing his good hand hard against the wound at Rhys's ribs. "Pressure," he said. "Keep it steady. I've seen worse mend.""You've seen worse mend on a battlefield with a healer standing by," I snapped, fear making my voice sharp."Doran sent for Talia the moment the horn sounded," Marcus s