All Chapters of Rejected by My Fated Mate : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Dawn crept ever closer than I wanted as grey light bled through the trees, and I stood at the foot of the clearing contemplating the Warden's offer like a rock that wouldn't roll away._A permanent, magically enforced limitation. These words returned no matter how much I wished to think beyond them.My mother approached the stream and stood beside me while Rhaevan and Vaelric held a careful distance—a few feet between us, close enough to be supportive without pressing in."You haven't spoken in ages," she intoned.I decided for you nine years ago that choice was fixed – never asked. Even so hard is the urge of telling you this one, I won't make this one for you either."Would you tell me anyway?" I asked. "If I asked you to."That was a question she considered, as I appreciated much more than just a blank answer.The oath would sustain you, I said. That's not nothing, Lunara. Alive is that you choose to go forward, even with limited items. Death ends the choosing entirely."A pause."

The Council had lined up in a broad half-circle along the edge of the clearing, dozens of hooded figures who stared silently back towards the hollow just before they were engulfed by the last fading toll of the bell.Mist had started to push grey and thin through the canopy, catching on robes the colour of deep water, and from this place I knew where a human was supposed to feel in the shadow of something that old.I am not going to allow myself to feel it.At the edge of the clearing, a frail custodian thundered his voice across it:"You have chosen to manifest—not affirm—this oath."Know what that choice means if you cannot persuade us. The oath will not be offered for a second time thereafter. No further deliberation. The only verdict that the members of this council were called to pass in the first place.I was encouraged by my voice dodging when I said, "Uh-huh."Then begin.I clenched my hand around the stone Rhaevan had given me, and instead of chasing that memory of fear as I

Siphoning what little was left after Seraphyne's letter, beyond the abyss of this night, everyone finally, slowly, bled out. My mother walked away first, complaining that wards would have to be installed so secure meeting routes could occur, Nyra gliding along after her like a tracking pad locked into the next few moves.That left the three of us—Vaelric scowling at the parchment as if it might rewrite itself, Rhaevan sizing him up with quiet, unreadable patience, and me wedged between them, twelve hours of everything crushing down now that danger had passed."I need air," I said. Neither argued, although Rhaevan's eyes followed me to the door, with concern he didn't vocalize.The outer walkway of the hold was a corrupted grey—pale grey in the sense of true morning, without torchlight and terror backlighting, yet familiar enough that it shouldn't feel like safety. I staked out a quiet patch with a view of the hills to our north and took what was my first inhalation since the ceremony

I was taken to sleep quicker than I had expected, curled up under borrowed furs in the small room Nyra had prepared for me. I opened my mouth instead of blacking out, dreaming for the first time since the ceremony.A throne room that I had never seen — black stone streaked with silver light — and in the middle of it, a woman wearing my face unwrapped of all its doubt, shoulders locked as if she has a right to stand there without prompting. She turned towards me, hesitantly, as if to say something.Then the dream shattered.I woke to grey afternoon light knifing through a narrow window, my body pulsing with the bill due for the previous day.As I came out, all hunched up over a cantilevered spread of brittle pages, my mother gone, just Rhaevan occupied the hall.She is having a break," he said, without lifting his eyes. He was following my footsteps even before I had exited the door. I talked her into believing that the research could get by for a few hours without both of us up."

Night fell, and Vaelric still hadn’t returned. Each passing silent hour tightened the knot in my chest.I lingered at the hold's gate long after it made sense, my eyes straining against the tree line, until Rhaevan gently guided me back inside, his hand steady on my elbow."Worry won’t shorten the road.""He mentioned that communication would be limited," I replied, feeling the weakness of my words even as I spoke. "But that doesn’t mean something’s wrong.""No," Rhaevan agreed. "It doesn’t. Yet your mind is quick to fear the worst. After last night, it knows how to do that."An hour later, my mother found us in the hall, holding a steaming pot. She placed it on the table where the chapel map was still laid out."Eat."I complied out of habit rather than hunger. They settled around me without pressing for conversation — simply present, not comforting.Well past midnight, the gate horn blared, and I leapt up before the sound faded, relief and dread clashing as I rushed through the co