The Wolf Who Shattered Her Oath to Luna

Chapter 16 – Council Shadows

The war room always felt like it needed another window and one less problem.

Maps covered the main wall, our territory inked and re‑inked until the edges blurred. Knives pinned a few of them in place. Cassian and Jace stood over the table, mid‑argument, when Sera and I stepped in.

Both men stopped.

Jace’s gaze went from my face to the stack of scrolls in Sera’s arms. “This looks promising,” he said. “We invading someone or confessing sins?”

“Little of column B,” I muttered.

Cassian’s eyes narrowed. “What happened?”

“Not an attack,” Sera said. “Information. Old and ugly.”

He gestured to the table. “Sit.”

I didn’t. My legs were too twitchy to fold neatly into a chair.

Sera set the scrolls down with care. “You know Rhea’s birth was under an eclipse,” she began. “And that an outsider performed an additional rite over her.”

Cassian’s attention sharpened. “Mara told me there was a healer. That’s all.”

“He wasn’t a healer,” Sera said. “He was my mentor.”

The silence that followed had teeth.

“You performed the rite?” Cassian asked, voice too flat.

“I assisted,” she said. “With three children. Rhea was the last.”

My fingers dug into the edge of the table. “And what, precisely, did you assist with?”

Sera didn’t look away. “A binding designed to anchor Luna’s current in newborns touched by unstable signs. Eclipses. Storms. Places where the veil is thin. It ties the child’s Luna‑link to three points: their own wolf, the land…and a chosen counterpart. Usually an Alpha line.”

Jace swore softly. “You turned her into a conduit.”

“A potential conduit,” Sera corrected. “Most didn’t hold. One burned out. One vanished into Council ‘care.’ One reappeared years later on wanted lists.”

“Fen,” I said. The word felt like ice. “So I’m number four.”

“You’re the one still choosing,” Sera said quietly. “That matters.”

Cassian’s gaze pinned her. “The Council knows about these rites?”

“They banned them,” she said. “Then kept his notes. Officially they’re ‘forbidden experiments.’ Unofficially, they’re a template.”

“And you didn’t tell me,” he said.

“If the Council can’t confirm you have a conduit in your pack, they have less leverage,” Sera said. “As long as her link stayed quiet, secrecy was protection.”

“News flash,” I cut in. “It isn’t quiet. Whoever’s outside is already pulling on what you built. They don’t need your paperwork.”

Cassian looked at me then, really looked. “Can it be undone?”

“If I could cut it, I would’ve,” Sera said. “It’s woven into her. Ripping it out would kill her or worse.”

“Fantastic,” I said. “So I’m stuck like this and someone out there just realized I’m exactly the kind of tool they like.”

Jace scrubbed a hand over his face. “Council on one side, mystery conduit‑thief on the other. Love this for us.”

Cassian went very still.

“You came here,” he said to me, not Sera. “You could’ve run. To Fen. To some neutral no‑man’s‑land.”

“Run where?” I asked. “Fen wants me as a hammer. The Council wants me in a glass cage. At least here I get a vote.”

Something in his jaw eased at that.

“All right,” he said. “Then we deal with what is.”

He moved around the table, bracing both hands on the scarred wood, shoulders squaring.

“Officially,” Cassian said, “Rhea stays what the Council already thinks she is: a Hollow anomaly under supervision. No mention of eclipse rites, conduits, or your mentor. Our reports stay bland and boring.”

“And off the record?” Jace asked.

Cassian’s eyes met mine. “Off the record, she’s Nightwind’s conduit. Mine. We train that link on our terms. We build safeguards and limits before anyone else tries to use it.”

“And if the Council digs up your mentor’s notes and connects the dots?” I asked.

“Then they’ll come knocking,” Sera said.

“Then they’ll find the door barred,” Cassian corrected. “I’m done letting them decide which of my wolves they get to carve up.”

The possessive hit deep, hot and disorienting.

I folded my arms to hide the way my hands shook. “If we’re doing this,” I said, “I choose how far we push. You don’t plug me into every crisis and call it strategy.”

His gaze didn’t waver. “You set your lines,” he said. “I won’t cross them.”

Jace blew out a breath. “So the plan is: play Hollow for the cameras, conduit for the home team, and make sure anyone outside Nightwind regrets learning the difference.”

A grim smile tugged at my mouth. “Pretty much.”

Outside, the wards thrummed, a wary note under the wood.

Somewhere beyond them, something listened.

For the first time, as I looked between Cassian, Jace, and Sera, the fear in my chest wasn’t the kind that wanted to run.

It was the kind that wanted to stand.