BLESSING LUNA RISING

THE DUNGEON QUEEN

CHAPTER 17:

I did not walk to the dungeon.

Darius carried me.

He refused to let my feet touch black ice for three days after the double marking. He said White Queens who are three days pregnant with a White King heir do not walk. They are carried.

So he carried me down from the nesting tower, through the heart of Nocturne Keep, where a thousand Lycan warriors knelt as we passed — not to him, to me. To my belly. To the faint white glow visible even through the thick midnight furs he had wrapped around me.

My white wings were tucked around me, but every few steps silver dust fell, and wherever it landed, black ice melted into moonlit stone.

My father Aeron flew on my left, his white wings spread, his white fire lighting the dark halls. My mother Lira was on my right, holding moonwater for my wings. Selene floated behind us, her moon-eyes calm.

We were going to the ice cells.

Kael was chained on the lower ledge where my father left him — kneeling, forehead still bleeding, watching the tower. He saw me being carried and tried to stand. My father's white fire shoved him back down without touching him.

The dungeon doors opened before Darius touched them. White fire did it. Mine.

Inside, it was not like Silverfang's dungeon — wet stone and rats. This was black ice that drank light. Two cells, side by side.

In the left cell: Mara Blackthorn. My false mother. The she-wolf who stole me from my mother's crib nineteen years ago, who fed me wolfsbane tea every morning for nineteen years to keep my White Queen blood asleep, who told Kael I was wolfless and worthless.

She was no longer Luna. Darius's warriors had stripped her Luna furs. Her hair was matted. Her eyes, which had always been cruel to me, were now terrified. Because she could feel it — her wolf was gone. I had severed her soul three days ago in the courtyard. She was empty now, like she made me empty.

In the right cell: Seraphine. The perfect she-wolf in white lace. The girl Kael chose over me. Her white lace dress was torn and bloody from the courtyard. Her belly, which had been fake-pregnant to trap Kael, was flat. Her face was bruised where Darius's warriors had dragged her. Her wolf was whimpering, cowering — it could feel my white fire even through black ice.

They both looked up when I entered.

Mara saw me first — saw me being carried by the Lycan King, saw my double-marked neck glowing black and silver, saw my twelve-foot white wings, saw my father's white wings behind me, saw my belly glowing white.

And she knew. She knew what she stole.

"Lira... Aeron... it is you..." she whispered to my real parents. "You lived..."

My mother Lira stepped forward, her own broken wings trembling. For nineteen years she thought I was dead.

"You stole my pup," she said, her voice not loud, but every piece of black ice cracked with it. "You fed my starling wolfsbane. You made her think she was wolfless. You let her bleed for five years for your son."

Mara started crying, real tears. "I wanted Kael to be Alpha King! The witch said White Queens would kill all werewolves! I had to—"

"Silence."

It was me.

My voice wasn't loud either. But my white fire, which had been dormant while Darius carried me, flared from my hands, white and silver, lighting the entire dungeon like daylight.

Darius set me down on my feet for the first time in three days, but kept his arms around my waist, his black wings spread behind me like a throne. My father spread his white wings on my other side. Two Kings. One Queen between them.

I walked to Mara's cell, my bare feet melting the black ice floor into stone with each step. My belly glowed brighter with each step.

Mara pressed herself into the corner.

"Elara, please— I raised you— I—"

"You raised me to be empty," I said, and placed my hand on the black ice bars. The bars melted.

I did not touch her. I didn't need to.

I looked at her chest, where her severed soul still tried to beat.

"White Queen's Justice does not kill, Mara. Death is too easy for mothers who poison daughters."

I lifted my hand, and white fire — not burning, but binding — wrapped around her throat, her wrists, her ankles.

"You will live," I whispered. "Wolfless. Powerless. In Silverfang, where every she-wolf you made bully me will see you sweep floors. You will watch Kael kneel on the lower ledge for the rest of his life for what he did to me. And every morning, you will drink the wolfsbane tea you fed me for nineteen years. So you remember."

Mara screamed as the white fire sank into her skin, marking her — not a Luna mark, a servant mark. A small, grey, broken moon on her forehead.

Then I turned to Seraphine.

Seraphine was already kneeling.

"Please," she sobbed, her hands over her flat belly. "Please, I didn't know you were a Queen, I didn't know— Kael said you were wolfless, he said you would never give him a pup, I only—"

"You wore my white lace," I said quietly. "The lace I bled five years to earn."

I placed my hand on her cell bars. They didn't melt. They shattered.

Seraphine flinched, covering her face.

I knelt in front of her, my belly glowing white between us, my double mark glowing.

"You wanted to be Luna so badly you faked a pup," I whispered, so only she could hear. "So the Goddess will grant your wish. You will never carry a pup. Not with Kael. Not with any wolf. White Queen's word."

White fire, thin as a thread, touched her belly. She screamed, not from pain — from emptiness. Where her womb had been, now there was only cold.

Her wolf howled and then went silent forever. Not severed. Cursed.

I stood, my legs shaking, and Darius was instantly there, catching me, lifting me back into his arms, his black wings wrapping around me and our son, growling at both cells.

My father Aeron looked at both women on the floor — one wolfless, one barren — and nodded once, satisfied.

"Justice," Selene said from behind, her moon-eyes glowing. "True White Queen's Justice. Not revenge. Balance."

I buried my face in Darius's chest, exhausted. Using justice fire while pregnant had drained me. Silver dust poured from my wings.

"Take me back to the nest," I whispered to Darius.

He kissed my double-marked neck, turned his back on the dungeon, on Mara's screams and Seraphine's sobs, and flew straight up through the ice shafts, back to our tower, back to our furs.

Behind us, my mother Lira poured the wolfsbane tea she had carried all the way from Silverfang — nineteen years of poison — down Mara's throat, one cup for every year she stole.

On the lower ledge, Kael heard his mother's scream and his false Luna's scream at the same time, and finally understood that the wolfless girl he discarded in white lace was now a Queen who could unmake wolves with a word.