The Rejected Luna's Revenge

Chapter Five

AURORA

“Sister?”

The word feels foreign on my tongue. Lira’s face softens, but something behind her eyes flickers, it's unreadable.

“You don’t remember me,” she says gently. “But I remember you, every version of you.” she said

Kael steps between us. “Lira, this isn’t the time.” he said

“She needs to know,” Lira snaps, brushing past him.

“No,” Kael says again, firmer this time. “Not now, not with the Elders preparing the circle.”

“The circle?” I ask, my heart pounding. Neither of them answers right away. Lira pulls back her hood and lowers her voice. “They’re summoning tonight, if they catch wind of you being back…” Her eyes dart to the window. “You won’t make it out alive.”

Kael immediately starts packing supplies, coats, a blanket. His jaw is set, his eyes darker than before. “I’ll take her to the mountains,” he says. “The ruins, no one goes there.”

“That won’t buy much time,” Lira mutters. “They already suspect something, they always do.” My gaze shifts between them, trying to breathe around the pressure growing in my chest.

“I don’t understand,” I say quietly. “Why would they want me dead?”

Lira’s expression shifts. I can't tell which look is written on her face, pity, fear or guilt. “Because once, Aurora,” she says, stepping closer, “you stood between them and everything they wanted. And now they’re afraid you’ll remember how.”

The wind outside howls suddenly, the door creaks, but it doesn’t open, every shadow seems heavier now.

“I need answers,” I whisper and Kael stops moving.

Lira looks at me carefully and replied “Then you need to leave this place, the longer you stay here, the more you’ll start to feel it, the pull, the memories, the power they tried to strip from you.”

My mouth goes dry. “Power?”

Kael shoots her a look, but she doesn’t back down. “They didn’t just erase your memories, they sealed parts of you away and locked them so deep even your wolf couldn’t find them.”

My wolf, that word hits differently, it belongs somewhere inside me but I can’t feel her. A sudden ache swells in my chest. I feel empty and sad like something sacred was taken from me and I didn’t even know to grieve it.

“I don’t feel anything,” I murmur.

“You will,” Lira says. “And when you do, run.”

The silence that followed wrapped around me like a second skin. I didn’t know whether to scream or fall to the floor. So much was being said in so few words, yet none of it gave me clarity only more questions.

I turned from them and walked to the other end of the cabin. The wood beneath my feet groaned with each step. There was a cracked mirror leaning against the wall, its glass splintered like spiderwebs. I caught a glimpse of my reflection she still looked pale, nothing like the girl I used to be, whoever that was.

Lira joined me quietly. "You used to stare at your reflection like that," she said softly. "Trying to see past the surface. You were always looking for pieces of yourself even when you thought you were whole."

"It doesn't feel like there’s much of me left," I said, my eyes still fixed on the mirror.

"There is," she said. "It’s just buried, not lost. There's a difference."

Behind us, Kael moved through the room with calculated precision. His every gesture, every glance toward the door spoke of urgency. But he didn’t interrupt.

“You were brave, you know,” Lira added. “Before, maybe too brave for your own good.” I blinked at her. “What did I do?”

She hesitated. “You defied them publicly. You stood before the circle and called out the Elders for their betrayal. You exposed things they tried to keep hidden for generations.” I didn't know how to react to this new finding “I don’t remember that.” I replied

“They made sure you wouldn’t.”

She glanced down at my hands. I followed her gaze, my fingers were trembling. Faint scars ran across the back of my palms. I hadn't noticed them before.

"How did I get these?"

Lira paused, her eyes far away. “The last time you tried to shift, they stopped you.”

A bitter chill slid down my spine. “Why are you just telling me this now?” I asked.

“Because they’ll come for you whether you remember or not,” she whispered. “But if you do remember then at least you’ll know who you are when you face them.”

Before I could respond, Kael barked, “Enough. We move now.”

Lira gave me one last look and turned away. I wanted to stop her, to demand more, but something heavy pressed against my chest, storm of emotions I didn’t recognize or didn’t want to.

Outside, the wind had turned vicious, the snow fell sideways now, hissing against the walls. The tension in the air thickened with every passing second.

Then came the thud. Kael moved fast, yanking the door open and we see no one, just snow.

Until, an arrow flies past him and slams into the doorframe. We all duck, a second later, flames explode from the tip. The arrow burned bright, then fades into sparks. It's seems like a warning.

“They know,” Kael says under his breath. He turns to me and says “We leave now.”

The three of us rush into the trees, Lira leading the way with surprising speed. We run until the lights of the village vanish behind the trees.

We cross a frozen stream, its surface cracked like glass. The silence of the woods is eerie, broken only by our breaths and the rhythm of our feet. My thoughts race faster than my steps, torn between fear and fragments of things I can’t grasp. After a while, Kael slows us down near an old watchtower, half-collapsed and swallowed by vines.

“We used to come here,” he says, as if it just slipped out. “You and I.”

I pause. “We did?”

He nods. “Before everything went to hell. You said the tower made you feel above the world, like you could breathe better up there.” A pang echoes through my chest, a phantom feeling, not amemory, but something close. A ghost of laughter I can't recall.

“Did we love each other?” I ask suddenly, the words escaping before I can stop them.

Kael doesn’t answer at first. Then he says, “We were more than that. But love was in it, yes.”

I want to ask more. I want to know what we were, how we broke, and why I feel this ache when I look at him. But the moment slips away as fast as it came. We keep walking.

When we finally stop, it’s in a clearing, deep in the woods. The air is colder here and the trees bend toward each other, whispering. Kael crouches, scanning the trees. “We’ll rest here for an hour without fire.”

Lira remains standing, her eyes darting toward the shadows. After a few minutes, she walks over to me.

“Aurora,” she says, reaching into her coat. I tense. But she only pulls out a locket, it's thin and looks old, the metal scratched. “This was yours,” she whispered. “You used to wear it every day. You said it reminded you to stay strong.”

She pressed it into my hand and I opened it slowly. There’s a picture inside with two girls laughing and one of them is me. I see a flicker of memory or maybe just the ghost of one. But it’s gone before I can catch it.

Kael watches from a distance, his arms crossed with his face unreadable.

I turn to Lira. “Why are you really helping me?” I asked. She doesn’t answer, she holds my gaze and says, “Because you saved me once and I never got to repay you.”

The night grows heavier. Kael calls me over to talk strategy. But Lira stays back, her fingers fidgeting with the edge of her sleeve. Her eyes flick toward the trees too often.

And then, she slipped something from her pocket, a small mirror and whispered into it.

“She’s here,she trusts me. You can move.”