All Chapters of Second Chance for the Discarded Luna : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

He looked smaller than I remembered, propped against pillows with his arm bound tight across his chest, a fresh bruise purpling along his jaw. Verity sat in the chair beside his bed, and rose the moment I entered, offering me a small, understanding nod before stepping out to give us privacy."You shouldn't be exerting yourself," I said, pulling the chair closer. "Talia said you insisted this couldn't wait.""It couldn't." His voice came out rough, but steady. "Elena, during the fighting, before Doran's party broke through, one of the attackers got close enough to speak to me directly. I think he wanted me to hear it before he died."Something cold settled through me. "What did he say?""He said the ambush was only meant to weaken me," Marcus said. "Not kill me outright. Weaken me enough that I'd be vulnerable for whatever comes next." He met my eyes, something grim and urgent in his expression. "He mentioned a summit. Said the real strike was planned for when both our kingdoms' leader

I stood very still in my own doorway, turning Rhys's question over before I trusted myself to answer it."The mark," I said slowly. "It has to be. Talia told me the twins carry something unusual, stronger than she's ever felt before. I didn't understand what that meant until she explained it to me, that morning after the ambush.""You think Ashra knew about that," Rhys said, "before Talia even sensed it herself.""I think," I said, the pieces settling into place with a cold, uncomfortable clarity, "that whatever this mark actually signifies, it's bigger than simple proof of parentage. Ashra isn't interested in two children because they're Marcus's heirs. She's interested in them because of something else entirely, something old enough that she knew to look for it before any of us thought to."Rhys's jaw tightened. "Then we need someone who actually understands the old lore. Someone beyond Talia's healing knowledge.""Priestess Wren," I said. "Marcus mentioned her once, back at Blackth

I read the letter twice before I trusted myself to understand it properly, Rhys's shoulder warm against mine in the lantern light, Nessa and the pup settled nearby pretending not to listen.Princess Elena,You won't remember me, though I remember you as a small girl trailing after your mother through the eastern gardens, asking more questions than any tutor had patience for. I served your father's court briefly, before I decided a throne room wasn't where I wanted to spend my life, and left to build something of my own instead.That something is a trading house now, modest but growing, in a free port that answers to no single crown. I've followed your story since word of Blackthorn reached even this far south, and I confess I admired what I heard of how you rebuilt yourself afterward.I don't know what your life looks like now, or what you need. I only know that should the day come when you want ground that belongs entirely to you, without a father's throne or a husband's pack attache

"The wrong child," I said, reading the line a third time as though repetition might soften what it meant. "He wasn't trying to take Lyra's daughter at all. He was testing our defenses. Seeing how closely Blackthorn guards a nursery, so they'd know exactly what to expect when it actually matters.""When the real children are born," Rhys said grimly.My father took the letter from my hands, reading it himself with the same careful, controlled fury I'd watched settle over him more times these past weeks than I wanted to count. "This changes our timeline," he said. "I'd hoped we had months yet to prepare properly. If they're already testing nursery defenses at Blackthorn, they may be preparing to move considerably sooner than Wren's fortnight deadline even suggests.""Should we move the birth location again?" Kellan asked. "Somewhere even more hidden?""We don't yet know where it will happen," my father said. "We haven't chosen, deliberately, so that no single leak could expose it in adva

"She's telling us the deadline was never real," my father said, pacing the length of his study while Doran scrubbed at the dark stain still marking his hands from examining the gate. "Three days, a full moon, all of it theater. She can move whenever she decides to.""Then we stop treating three days as a fixed point," I said. "We prepare as though tonight is the night, and every night after it, until this is finished.""That's not sustainable," Kellan said. "You can't live under siege conditions indefinitely, Elena. Not through the rest of this pregnancy.""I don't intend to," I said. "I intend to end this before it has the chance to drag on that long."My father stopped pacing, studying me with something caught between pride and fear. "What are you proposing?"I'd been turning the thought over since the moment I saw the blade driven into the gate, and now, finally, I let myself say it plainly. "We stop reacting to her letters and start forcing her hand instead. She wants certainty ab