The Luna Who Burns: Rejected, Exiled, Returned As Queen

The neutral lands

*Chapter 3: The Neutral Lands*

The Neutral Lands didn’t look neutral. They looked dead.

Bare, black trees clawed at a grey sky. No birds. No sound. Just wind and my teeth chattering so hard I thought they’d crack.

I dragged myself from the Black River, leaving wet blood in the snow. My feet were shredded. I couldn’t feel them. That was probably bad.

_Keep moving, Aria. If you stop, you die. If you die, she dies._

My father’s knife was still in my hand. The leather wrap saved my frozen fingers. I used it to hack off the bottom of my soaked Luna dress. Dead weight. Now I wore a ragged tunic, still dripping, but I could walk.

Thomas’s bag. I dumped it with shaking hands.

Gold coins. Real pack gold. Enough to survive months.

Dried meat. Three days if I rationed.

Flint.

And folded parchment.

My mother’s handwriting.

_Aria, my brave girl,_

_If you’re reading this, Thomas got to you. You’re alive. I’m sorry. I tried to fight him. Darius controls the elders._

_Go to Greyvale. Two days east from the Black River. Find Madame Elise. Say you’re ‘the nightingale’s daughter.’ She will hide you._

_I love you. Protect your baby. You are not wolfless. You are stronger than any wolf._

_Burn this._

_— Mama_

I pressed the letter to my chest and sobbed. Ugly. Broken. The dead trees were my only witnesses.

Greyvale. Two days. I’d be lucky to survive two hours.

I forced down salt-leather meat. It sat like a stone in my stomach. Warm. Real.

I burned the letter. Ashes vanished in the wind. Another piece of me gone.

I walked east.

---

Night nearly killed me.

I crawled under a fallen log, piled snow at the entrance, left one breathing hole. The knife stayed in my grip. Rogue females didn’t last in the Neutral Lands. Not just from cold.

Ferals did.

Around midnight, I heard them. Low, wet growls. No reason in the sound.

Three circled my log. Mangy. Mad. One with a torn ear, one limping, one massive—an old Beta gone feral.

They smelled blood. Smelled pregnancy.

A pregnant rogue. Easiest kill in the forest.

The big one shoved his muzzle into my hole. Yellow eyes. Broken brown teeth. Saliva dripped on snow.

I didn’t think. I stabbed.

My father’s knife punched through his jaw into his brain. He collapsed, blocking the entrance. Dead. Warm.

The other two tore at his body to reach me. I yanked the knife free. My hands weren’t shaking. Lyra was silent, but my mother raised a fighter.

The second got his head in. I went for the eye. The blade sank deep. He screamed like a dying man and thrashed back, taking my knife with him.

Now I had nothing.

The third, the limper, dug around the log to collapse it.

I was going to die. Take my daughter with me.

_No._

Heat flooded me. Started in my stomach, burned outward. Vision went white.

And I heard her. Not Lyra. My daughter.

_Fight, Mama._

Cold vanished. Numbness gone. I shoved the dead feral’s body and rolled out, coming up with a rock.

The limper lunged. I met him head-on. Smashed the rock into his temple. Once. Twice. Three times.

He stopped.

I stood barefoot in snow, covered in feral blood, holding a rock. My white dress was red.

I wasn’t wolfless. I was something else.

I reclaimed my knife. Cleaned it in snow. Cut feral pelt, wrapped my feet. Disgusting. Warm.

I kept walking.

---

Greyvale wasn’t a village. It was a city. Stone walls. Guards. Humans and wolves together. No pack colors. No bowing.

A guard with a sword stopped me. “State your business, girl.”

My voice was gone. I held out gold.

He saw my feet, the blood, my stomach. His face softened. “Healer’s main street. Green door. Tell Madame Elise that Garran sent you.”

He didn’t ask my name. Didn’t call me rogue. Just let me in.

I collapsed against the green door. It opened. I hit warm wood.

“By the Goddess,” a woman gasped.

Iron-grey hair. Herb-stained hands. Madame Elise didn’t ask questions. Hot water. Blankets. Soup. She cut the feral skins off, cleaned the mess, dressed me in wool, put me by the fire.

Only when I was warm did she speak.

“What’s your name, child?”

Aria was the Luna. Aria was dead.

“My name is... Wren. My name is Wren.”

She nodded. “And who hurt you, Wren?”

“An Alpha King.”

Her eyes went hard. “Did he know about the baby?”

“No. And he never will.”

She put her hand on my stomach. The baby kicked. Hard.

Madame Elise’s eyebrows shot up. “Five months, I’d say. Not two.”

“What?”

“Alpha pregnancies move fast. And hit hard.” She met my eyes. “You’re not wolfless. You’re a carrier. Your wolf sleeps to protect the pup. When she’s born, your wolf wakes up.”

Hope. Real hope.

“How long?”

“Five years ago, a girl like you came through. Her wolf woke the day her son turned five. The day her mate came to claim them.”

Five years.

Five years to become strong. Five years to build a life. Five years before Darius learned he had an heir.

I could do that.

“I need work. And to stay hidden.”

She smiled, sharp. “You can work for me, Wren. And in Greyvale, we’re very good at hiding things from Alpha Kings.”

Outside, snow fell. But I was warm now.