All Chapters of The Last Blackblood Luna: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Chapter 31: The Silence After Nadia's POV The return ride back towards Citadel seemed unduly long. The adrenaline rush from the hunt and the standoff at the bridge left my veins buzzing. Now it was a slow, dull drain, leaving my bones heavy. With every step, the horse's hoof beats hollow against the sodden stone. Lyra offered little more than quiet on our passage back to the Citadel. No victorious speeches. Nor words of caution about the morning's Council session. Only his knee brushing gently against my own, close enough for the scent of his skin to mingle with the iron tang of my own sweat. The city walls and gates seemed impossibly far away when we finally broke in through the courtyard, the iron slats of the gates groaning as they were winched back into place in the ceiling, black grease still clinging to the notches of their edges. Dressed in their polished uniforms, a handful of palace guards hovered near enough to the two of us to see the blood on my forearms and t

Chapter 33: The Council of Wolves Nadia's POV The heavy bronze doors of the Great Hall were colder than the mountain morning when I stood before them. Beside me, Lyra adjusted the high silver collar of his court tunic. His presence was an unrelenting wall of heat, but through our mate bond, I could sense the sharp, jittery anticipation he was feeling. It wasn't like charging the line of northern mercenaries at the Red Gorge. There would be no clear strikes here, but polite smiles, whispered backstabbing, and velvet words that could ruin a whole lineage as easily as an iron blade would. "Ready?" He asked softly as he looked down at me. I took a breath, smoothing out the front of the dark violet velvet dress his servants had brought for me. It was simply not adorned with the intricate gold embroidery favoured by the highborn ladies of the Citadel, but it was a light enough garment to move in, not to mention the small, silver-hilted dagger still hidden in the deep folds of th

Chapter 35: The StormNadia's POV:The dull sound of bronze doors closing after the guards flinging the meddler Sterling away echoed in my skull. The tension, which had been bubbling inside the great hall, slowly bled out with the figures running back in the corridor, trying to shed off the impending guards' investigation. This hush was not a harbinger of relief, as the nervous chattering before Sterling's arrival was; it was the uneasy peace after the storm. A storm that just rid every noble's house's floorboards of their longtime guests.Most of the eastern dukes had already slipped away unnoticed using the outer side-arches' shadows to hide their hurried departures from curious eyes who would ask too many questions when their lords' treachery would finally come to light (and the royal investigators eventually would).So the only figures that remained watching our 'proceedings,' aside from a few vanguard guards who had stayed by the perimeter during the tumult, were Valerius and I.

Chapter 37: Into the MountainNadia's POV Lyra's vanguard captains were shouting orders to impatient squires; our infiltration squad huddled in the shadow of the southern wall. There were only twelve of us--border trackers hardened from years on the march, or pureblood scouts quick of step and sharp of tongue.Before slipping out into the deep night, I unbuckled a pouch of leather from my waist and set a kettle of small iron over a low-burning brazier, hastily conjured from the wind.The scouts murmured amongst themselves as I fished out little bundles of silver-root, moon's flowers, and bitter mountain sage. "What is that?" Valerius asked, peering into the bubbling brew with obvious distaste. "We need to be sharp, Nadia. Not drunk on mountain brew.""Drunk?" I bit off a few berries the deep red of crushed blood and tossed them into the tea. The steam curled in fragrant, spicy plumes of earth and iron, and the freezing fog at the walls seemed to shudder away from the smell. "Vaelen's

Chapter 39: The Catacombs of the Forgotten Nadia's POVThe heavy iron valves of the dark-iron pump burst away on the combined attack of our daggers, sending forth a jet of glowing violet fluid that sprayed the molten stone furnaces, a blistering, toxic shriek filling the air as the pureblood blood-catalyst hit the open fire and flash-boiled into thick, choking clouds of violet smoke, sending the northern smiths scurrying away in blind panic."Fall back to the secondary maintenance corridor!" I shouted over the roar of the collapsing machinery, wiping soot and stinging sweat from my eyes as our squad scrambled through a shattered archway, diving deep into a narrow, uncharted tunnel that sloped ever downward into the bedrock, away from the burning forge chamber. The stifling heat behind us was incredible, but as we plunged deeper into the mountain's heart, the air changed from one of stifling summer to dead, biting, absolute frost.We ran in grim silence for what felt like miles, our