Three weeks later. The twins’ first full moon outside.
I took them to the palace roof at moonrise. Jasper beside me. No ceremony, no witnesses, no Elders or healers or pack members. Just the four of us and the moon and whatever was going to happen when children who had been glowing in a nursery met their first full moon with the original Moon-born gift now resident in their bloodline alongside everything else they carried.
I could not have said, if asked, exactly why I did not want witnesses. I had a feeling about it, the specific instinct that had been right in every situation where I had followed it and wrong in none. Some things needed to happen privately first. Whatever this was, it needed to happen for us before it happened for anyone else.
Moonrise. The full moon appeared above th
