LUNA POV
Word spreads before breakfast even ends.
I find Ember in the courtyard, sitting alone on the low stone wall near the fountain, and for the first time since I met her, there's nothing sharp or hostile in her expression at all. Just fear, raw and unguarded, her green eyes rimmed red like she's been crying and trying hard not to. Her arms are wrapped tight around her knees, and the confident, competitive girl who threw me down onto the training field on my first day looks impossibly small right now, folded in on herself against the cold morning air.
"Her name's Willow," Ember says, her voice thin, none of its usual bite left in it. "She's my friend. We've bunked together since we were cubs. Since before either of us even Awakened." She wraps her arms tighter around herself, starin
