Exiled Luna

Chapter Five: Moon Cycle Awakening

My first night in the barbarian wilds, I spent curled inside the hollow of a dead tree's roots.

Kaelen had not come back after he left. But that knocking presence stayed in my blood, warm, like an ember refusing to die. It carried me through the worst of that night—festering wounds, the brand burning, my body fevered, my consciousness flickering in and out. More than once, I thought I would not make it.

But dawn still came.

I braced myself against the trunk and stood. My legs shook violently, but I did not fall. I looked down at myself—mud-caked, rags for clothes, the shame-brand half-visible through torn fabric. No one who saw me now would ever believe I had once been the High Clan's most honored princess.

But I no longer cared.

I licked my cracked lips and followed that earthy, bitter scent to the nearest stream. I dropped to my knees, drank handfuls of cold water, and washed the dried blood from my face. The water's surface reflected a stranger's face—pale, haggard, but with something new in the eyes that had not been there before.

I stared at that face for a long time. Then I stood up and began to learn how to survive in this wilderness.

The barbarian lands were nothing like the High Clan. The High Clan had walls, temples, and rigid laws. Here, there was only endless grassland, dense forest, rolling hills—and a pack of wild wolves I did not yet know.

With my wolf-instincts, I managed to tell which berries were edible, which water was safe, which beasts to avoid. My nose still worked; my night vision still held. But the moon-power in my blood was nearly gone—I could no longer summon the silver claws I had once wielded.

Just as I was beginning to think I would scrape by in this miserable state, the full moon came.

It was the first full moon since my exile. I curled in my tree hollow, watching that perfect circle climb the sky, when I felt something stir deep in my veins—not moonlight, but something stranger, something like a tide, rising through my limbs from the inside out.

The pain doubled me over. It was different from the brand's burn—more like something taking root, sprouting inside me, pushing aside the old dead parts. I could hear my bones creak, feel my flesh tremble, sweat soaking through my clothes.

"Hold on."

A voice came from above. I jerked my head up—Kaelen stood outside the hollow, backlit by the moon, his tall frame casting a long shadow. His dark eyes watched me, unreadable.

"The cycle-power inside you is awakening," he said. "In the barbarian lands, the full moon resets many things—old wounds, old pain, old guilt. But it does not give you power out of thin air. It only puts the chance in your hands. Whether you take it—that is up to you."

I gritted my teeth, nails biting into my palms. "Why... me? How could High Clan blood carry—"

"You think dual blood is rare?" he cut in. "Barbarians have been mixed-blood for generations. High Clan roots run through us all. You were simply suppressed by their rules—their contracts, their purity doctrine. Now those rules are gone. The other half is coming alive."

I froze. Dual blood. All along, barbarian blood had run in my veins—buried under the High Clan's "pure-blood" laws, under those moon contracts, layer upon layer of suppression. Now that I had been stripped of my moon-power, those layers had loosened. And with the full moon, my barbarian half was waking.

"It hurts..." I curled tighter, my voice shaking. "It hurts so much..."

"Good," Kaelen said, flat. "The barbarian cycle was never meant to be comfortable. Rebirth costs skin and bone. You have to endure the old self dying. If you cannot take this pain, forget about turning your life around."

He paused, then added:

"The brand on your back—the moon-cycle will slowly ease its burn. But the scars will not vanish. They will stay with you, to remind you where you crawled up from."

I listened to his words, and somehow the pain felt a little more bearable. I lifted my head through my sweat-soaked hair and rasped:

"Why are you helping me?"

Kaelen was quiet for a moment. Moonlight fell across his face, catching something deep in his eyes that I could not quite read.

"Because I have seen many people thrown out by the High Clan," he said. "Most of them die before the first moon cycle ends—not by beast, but by their own hearts. They cannot let go of the past, and they cannot embrace the new."

He held my gaze, each word deliberate:

"But you are different. You were branded, drained of your blood, thrown into this wilderness to die—and you are still alive. You clung to that shred of cycle-power and made it through your first night. The High Clan sentenced you to a lifetime of death, but you, so far, have refused to accept it."

He turned and walked away, his figure fading into the dark beneath the moon.

I curled back in the hollow, staring at that full, perfect circle above me. The brand still ached, but the burning was lighter than it had been the night before. I clenched my fists until my knuckles went white.

I had not accepted it.

In the High Clan, my past had killed me. But here, in these barbarian wilds, my past was being unmade, piece by piece.

I closed my eyes and let that unfamiliar cycle-power surge and grow through my blood. I knew the road ahead was long and would bring more pain—but I had no way back.

I would survive. I would become stronger than ever.

And then I would go back.



The same moon, at that very moment, hung over the High Clan's Moon Temple.

I closed my eyes and could almost see that distant dais: silver candles blazing, bells ringing, my sister in her Luna regalia, moon-crown upon her head, receiving the clan's bows and cheers. Lysander stood beside her, holding her hand. The crowd roared, "Hail the Luna!"—wave after wave, echoing across the royal city.

She straightened her collar for her, adjusted her crown, brushed an invisible speck from her shoulder—every gesture gentle and proper, like the best sister in the world.

But I knew that those hands, which had once smoothed my hair, were now holding everything they had stolen from me.

While I gnawed on bitter berries in the wilds, she sipped the sweetest moon-dew on the dais. While I shivered in a tree hollow, the brand eating at my flesh, she wore her moon-crown and received the Goddess's blessing, holy as if the Goddess herself had descended.

My fists clenched, nails cutting into my palms.

Sister, every ounce of your glory stands on the skin you peeled from my back. The more comfortably you enjoy it, the more I will survive—survive until the day I watch you fall from that seat.

The barbarians had an old saying: when the tide recedes, you see who has been swimming naked.

Sister, I am waiting for that tide to turn.