Exiled Luna

Chapter Two: Stripped of Standing

It took me three days to understand what I had truly lost that night—and it wasn't just a mate.

In High Clan tradition, one rejected by the fated bond was considered rejected by the Goddess herself, her entire existence invalid. I still remembered how the elders looked at me—that familiar expression, the one wolves give to a wounded elder who has fallen behind: gentle, but already treating you as dead.

I walked through the corridors. Noble girls who once sought my company spotted me from afar, hesitated, then hurried away. Their ears flattened and tails dropped—the instinctive response of a pack retreating from one marked as outcast. My nose still caught the relief in their scent as they turned the corner.

I stood in my half-empty bedchamber, staring at the empty rack. A moon-white cloak should have hung there—the one my sister sent the night before the ceremony, carried by her personal maid. A protective blessing from the Goddess, she had said, to ward off the night chill. I had been so moved I nearly wept, wearing it proudly onto the altar.

Now the rack was bare.

"Where is the cloak?" I asked the maid clearing my things.

She did not look up. "Her Highness the Luna said it was too worn for your station. She sent someone to retrieve it, and will have a new one made for you."

I stood there, my fingertips turning cold.

Too worn. My sister had chosen that fabric herself. I had worn it one night. How could it be "too worn"—unless she was afraid I might look at it and notice something I should not?

The night of the ceremony, why had my bond not shone? I had thought it was nerves, accident. But now I recalled that from the moment I put on that cloak, my blood had felt weighed down, as if something held the moonlight beneath the surface and would not let it rise.

I turned and walked out, my steps quickening. I would find my sister, and I would ask.

The guards at the main hall stopped me. Two high-ranked wolves, ears low, muscles taut. They did not draw their blades, but the threat was plain on their faces.

"The Luna is in council. No entry."

"I am Elowen," I said. "I need to see—"

"The Luna has given orders that no one is to disturb her."

My mouth opened, then closed. I understood. My sister was not "in council"—she simply did not wish to see me. The cloak was already in her hands, destroyed beyond recovery. I had no evidence, no witnesses, only that nagging, formless instinct.

Just then, the hall doors opened from within. My sister stepped out in her moon-white gown, the silver Luna crown pinned in her hair—the symbol that should have been mine. She caught sight of me, startled for an instant, then broke into that familiar, tender smile.

"Sister, what are you doing here?" She came forward, reaching to smooth my wind-tousled hair. "The wind is harsh. Go back inside."

I held her gaze. "Sister. Why did you take back the cloak?"

Her hand paused. Her smile did not waver. "Sister, I told you—it was too worn—"

"I wore it one night," I cut in. "Every gift you have ever given me, I have kept for years. Never has any been taken back after a single night."

For the briefest moment, her smile cracked. She was silent, then sighed softly, her tone carrying just the right weight of affection and patience:

"Sister, you have been so unsettled lately. I see it. If you love that cloak so much, I will have a new one made in the same fabric. Will that not please you?"

She raised a hand to stroke my head. I stepped back, evading her.

"My bond did not shine that night," I said. "The healers found nothing wrong with my blood. I have thought about it, and the only variable was that cloak."

Her hand hung in midair. She looked at me, something flickering behind her eyes—surprise, evaluation—then settling back into warmth. In that moment, a deep voice came from within the hall:

"Iseldra."

Lysander emerged. He stood behind her, his silver-gray eyes fixing on me with a cold scrutiny I had never seen before.

"What did you say to Iseldra?" he asked.

I looked at him—the man I had believed would share my life. He stood beside another woman, regarding me like a stranger.

"I only asked my sister..." My voice came out dry. "...why my bond did not shine."

"If it did not shine, that is your failure," Lysander said, without warmth. "Blood may be pure, but a weak heart is not worthy of the bond. You are no longer heir to the Luna's seat. Keep to your place, and do not stir trouble."

"I am not stirring trouble." I held his gaze. "I only want the truth—"

"The truth is that destiny has made its choice," he cut me off. "You were rejected. That is destiny's judgment. Accept it, and stop grasping at appeals."

He turned and walked back inside. Iseldra followed, casting a glance back at me—and beneath the tenderness and pity, I caught it: a thin, thread-thin gleam of triumph, meant only for me.

I stood alone in the wind, watching the door close before me.



That night, I sat on the cold bed in my side chamber, rifling through my old chest to its bottom. Wedged in a corner was a torn strip of fabric—moon-white, its edge darkened. The cloak's inner lining. When my sister took the cloak, she must have missed this small piece caught on the chest's latch.

I held it up to the moonlight. Woven into the lining was a pattern—spirals and loops, coiling like tides, like serpents curled. It was not High Clan work. I had never seen anything like it.

Barbarian.

The word hit me like ice water. Barbarian sigils—patterns only the barbarian tribes wove, carrying wild, cyclical power. It had been stitched into the cloak's inner lining, hidden in plain sight, pressed against my blood all night, smothering my bond with the moon.

And my sister had given it to me.

I clenched the scrap, my knuckles white. In the distance, the coronation bells rang out across the city—the bells for Iseldra's anointing as Luna, peal after peal.

I remembered my sister's look that night. She had not even needed the cloak—she only needed my own light to dim itself.

And I had not seen the pattern in that lining until I had lost everything.