Todos os capítulos de The Rejected Luna's Bloodline : Capítulo 21 - Capítulo 27

The search for Aldric Fenn stretched from what Matteo had confidently promised would take an hour into most of a day, as household contacts along the coast, a retired smuggler who owed Lucian a debt, a keeper's widow still loyal to the old families, came back with fragments rather than answers. A fishing village three towns south. A name on an old property deed. A rumor, unconfirmed, of a man matching his description buying supplies at a remote trading post twice a year and never staying long enough to be properly seen.Sera spent the waiting hours in the study, poring back over the ledger with Lucian at her side, searching for any earlier mention of Aldric Fenn buried in three centuries of careful record keeping. She found him only once, a single entry from roughly a decade past, listed simply as council physician, present at a ritual review, no further detail offered."That tells us almost nothing," she said, frustration edging into her voice."It tells us he was trusted enough to a

Selene stepped fully into the ruined doorway, crossing over the fallen enforcer without so much as a downward glance, as though the body were an object rather than a person.Lucian moved to place himself between her and Sera, blade still raised from the fight moments before. Matteo shifted to cover the two remaining enforcers still visible near the tree line, though neither moved to advance."You have no business here," Lucian said, his voice low, the fury beneath it plain despite how carefully he held it in check. "Whatever you are wearing, you are not my aunt."Selene's expression did not change at the accusation, as though she had expected it, perhaps even welcomed it."I am exactly what she chose to become," Selene said. "A vessel willing to finish what three centuries of careful, cowardly patience never managed to do." She looked past Lucian, her gaze settling on Sera with an intensity that made the cold along Sera's spine sharpen into something closer to dread. "Hello, Seraphina

Matteo did not sit. He remained standing near the ruined table, hands loose at his sides, the posture of a man who had rehearsed this confession many times in the privacy of his own mind and never once expected to actually deliver it."Six years ago I was not household guard to a Voss," he said. "I served the keepers directly. Council security, the same rank as the enforcers who came through that door tonight."Sera felt something cold settle low in her chest, separate from the bloodline's familiar chill. "You were one of them.""I was," Matteo said. "And I believed, then, that the council's work mattered more than any single life caught up in it. I still believe the council's founding purpose mattered. I no longer believe most of the people who claimed to serve it did."Lucian's blade had not lowered. "Get to the invitation."Matteo's jaw tightened, but he did not flinch from the demand. "There was a faction within the council, small, patient, single minded, that had grown convinced