The wind tore through the hills, sending Rayne’s cloak whipping behind her like tattered wings. Dust clung to her boots, her skin, her lashes—but she kept walking. One foot in front of the other, hour after hour, down the cracked stone roads that stretched far from the mountain that once held her entire world.
No destination. No allies. No map.
Only shame and exile.
The forest loomed ahead—tall, cold, unfamiliar.
She’d crossed two borders already in the past week. Nights spent in barns or abandoned mills. Days walking, hiding, keeping her hood pulled low.
Her mind spun constantly with what-ifs.
What if she had done as her father had told her?
What if she’d chosen to be the Luna she was meant to be?
Now everything she sacrificed had been for nothing.
Rayne wrapped her arms tighter
