THE LUNA HE EXECUTED CAME BACK

Episode 3: THREE YEARS EARLIER

I awoke with a start, a strangled scream dying in my throat.

Cold, damp stone filled my nostrils, the metallic tang of the dungeons, and for one heart-stopping second I felt the phantom weight of heavy silver chains biting into my wrists. My heart hammered against my ribs like a bird in a cage. Where… when…?

Then a different feeling overcame me. My mark shone. Not the empty ache of a broken connection, but a burning, urgent warmth in time with my panicked pulse. I rose slowly, looking around the room with my eyes.

It was not a cell. This was my old room.

The bed was sheets of silk that caressed my feverish skin like cool water. Somewhere in the room there was a trace of lavender, my favorite scent, and the expensive musk of the fireplace.

“Not possible,” I said. My voice was rough, torn like I had spent my life screaming, but my throat felt intact. My fingers trembled as I ran them over the familiar carved wooden desk, feeling the grain of the wood to convince myself it was real.

A sound outside—a gentle scrape of leather on stone—stopped me dead. The door opened with a creak and a familiar presence walked in.

Mira it was. My old maid, the one I had seen die in the bloody purge of the Council. The girl's eyes were large and bright. L-Luna… you are… awake?”

I blinked, my breath catching. Alive?

And then it hit me—the impossible, staggering truth. The Moon Goddess heard my last cry. Here I was again. I wasn't just alive. I was back in the time line, three years before the axe fell. I had the memories of a death I had already been through. I recall the coldness in Kael's eyes. I remembered the feeling of my pup dying inside of me. I smelled the snow, I remembered how it drank my blood.

Time… has given you a second chance, Nyx, my wolf, stirred inside my chest. Her voice was guarded, but filled with a new, dark power.

Again the door creaked. Heavy feet sounded in the passage. Be purposeful. Freezing The wood was coming through the authority.

Kael.

My stomach turned. Three years of knowledge, three years of betrayal seared into my soul that he could never possess.

Then the knock. A firm, authoritative rap that made my pulse jump.

“Seraphina.” Kael’s voice was low and controlled. "You ready?

My throat constricted. All my instincts were screaming at me to hide, to lash out, to brace myself for the trap I knew was coming. But I made myself breathe. I smoothed my silken nightgown and lifted my chin.

"I'm ready," I said, my voice steady, with a steel to it that hadn't been there before. Let him see me this time.

The door opened and Kael walked in. His face was a mask of unreadable distance, the same icy mask he wore in the council chambers when he sentenced me to death. He didn’t know. He could not have known it.

“Seraphina.” He said the name short. We must talk about the Council’s upcoming feast. “Your presence is requested.”

I narrowed my eyes. The trap was being laid already. The dinner would be where the first seeds of the "poisoning" rumors were sown. And this time... I’ll be prepared.

Kael came closer, and I saw something my past self was blinded by love to see. Underneath his placid facade was a glimmer of something other than annoyance, a hint of fear.

Okay. “Let him feel it,” Nyx purred.

I leaned back against the headboard and fixed my eyes on his. "You don't know me yet... but you will, soon," I whispered.

Across the room, Kael stood, every muscle rigid, eyes flicking to me like a predator sizing up prey that had suddenly grown claws. “You seem… different,” he said, testing me. “More... aware.”

“I might have,” I answered.

Experience, I thought sourly. The sensation of your blade against my throat.

“Experience?” he said. Kael took a step forward and the floorboards creaked under his weight. “You… smell changed. Stronger still. But... His voice trailed off and for a moment I saw a flash of confusion cross his face.

“More stronger?” "I wonder," I said, thinking it over. “I think that comes from surviving the impossible.

Kael froze, his hand reaching for the door. "Surviving… the unimaginable?

A faint smile twisted my lips. “Yes. There are things you will never get. Don't underestimate me, Kael. I'm not the girl you think I am."

That put a grim mask on his face. “You’ll regret it.”

"I shall see."

The air grew thick with a tension that threatened to shatter the windows. Then I noticed a soft tapping at the glass. A shadowy figure held a sealed message. I knew that handwriting. It was my stepsister Elara. The viper was already on the move.

I grabbed the note, my heart pounding. This time I would not lose. I broke the seal, reading the veiled threats and subtle manipulation of the upcoming Council vote. Everything my stepsister had done before had been to make me fail.

'You read that?' “What is it?” Kael asked warily.

"Nothing I haven't seen before," I said, my smile growing. “Who are you, Seraphina, really?” Kael growled and moved closer.

I looked at him, his eyes a sharp, dangerous intelligence. “The one you will come to fear,” I whispered.

I stuffed the note into my cloak and turned to the mirror. The threads of treachery were weaving through the night, but I was not afraid. Now I was the weaver.

“I’ll be illuminating,” I whispered, “the Council dinner…

We were interrupted by a knock on the door. Silas's voice, thin and insistent. "Seraphina, the envoy of the Council has arrived. “Alpha needs you in the hall.”

I rose with slow dignity. The hall was a rustle of whispers. I spotted Elara at the back, looking demure and innocent. My heart was steady as I stepped forward. Kael was behind me, I could feel it, his hand brushing mine for a second. He felt something was wrong, but he didn't know the truth.

I was about to speak to the envoy when the darkness parted and a shadowy figure slipped through, passing Kael a sealed envelope. I knew the mark, my stepsister’s seal, but the writing was different.

Kael broke the seal and narrowed his eyes. “This is… disturbing,” he said.

"It doesn't have to be," I said softly. “The sender valued you less. Or maybe overestimated their control.

Silas stepped forward, his crimson eyes sharp as a predator’s. "Seraphina, you think you can sway the Council that easily?”

I laughed, a soft tune of laughter. Manipulate? No. I'm only reminding them of reality."

Suddenly the doors flew open. “They have invaded the southern border! The Black Moon pack is on the move!

The hall freaked out. Nyx growled low. She could smell the lie. “This is not random,” I told Kael. “Someone is making a mess—inside and outside.”

"And you think you know who?" asked Kael.

“I know who’s winning.

The Council scrambled, and a shadow detached itself from the wall, a figure with a dagger engraved with her stepsister's insignia. Played, I thought. We have been played.

“Kael…we have to do something,” I said, my voice firm.

There was a crash from the Council chambers. Torches flickered and went out. A tall dark shape—a lunging intruder. He reeked of bloodlust and strange herbs.

Did you miss me, Seraphina?” he sneered. I knew him, a guard I had once trusted.

"I had faith in you," I hissed, instinctively shifting. With superhuman speed I evaded his blow. Kael was with me, a presence like a shield. Combined, they were a storm.

But a secret device let loose a cage of thick, choking, dark smoke. A stabbing pain ripped through my side. I gasped and staggered. A voice whispered, “You can’t stop what’s coming…Luna.”

Blood splattered on the floor. Nyx snarled, her power rising to counter the threat. "Kael… they want us dead. It’s a trap.”

Kael's eyes shone red. Then we survive. Together.” “Together.

I snatched up a small silver bottle that the intruder had dropped. On it were runes, old runes, cut deep. "This...this is what killed me before," I whispered.

The smoke cleared, but the room felt heavier. I held the vial and my hands trembled. Behind my eyes, a vision exploded—my execution, my stepsister’s laugh, Kael turning his back.

I won't let them use it again.”

The intruder returned, the knife glinting. Didn’t hesitate. I charged my claws with silver energy and hurled him back. Hard enough to rattle the stone walls.

“Seraphina… what are you?” Kael's voice was trembling with awe.

I didn't reply. I picked up a black feather the stranger had left behind. It hummed with dark energy. “It’s not just me,” I said faintly. 'It's pack.

The seal of my power burned, howling against my control. I could feel the dark threads of a tracking spell stitching into my aura, winding into the corridors.

"They are everywhere," I said in a whisper.

I punched the air in frustration and shattered a nearby chair without even touching it. Kael backed away. “Seraphina… that’s force you haven’t mastered in decades.”

“Precisely. And they think I’m still in shackles.”

The door creaked open. A shadow slipped in. Not a spy, but Aeliana, my closest ally. —or so I thought.

"You..." I whispered, and my wolf growled a warning. “How long have you been on my tail?”

Aeliana appeared into the light, her eyes cold. "Loyalty is a luxury, Sera. “I did what I had to.”

I saw the black feather was attached to Aeliana. It had been her, the spy, the one feeding my energy back to my stepsister.

"You've poisoned my life!" My hands went white hot.

“You’re too dangerous,” hissed Aeliana. She flicked her wrist and a dark energy hit Kael and me, sending us flying back. The faces of the dead were contorted into screaming warnings by the shadows.

“You think destroying shadows will save you? Aeliana chuckled. “Your execution … was just the start.”

The air was getting cold. Something new entered the chamber. Older, darker, more powerful than anything I had ever felt.

"Ah," whispered Aeliana, her voice shaking. “You weren’t ready to meet with them yet.”

A figure in a hood came forward. The scent struck me, blood and lunar power. My own executioner… or somebody connected to the reason I had died.

"So... she's back," the figure rumbled.

The hooded figure lifted its head, and unveiled the face of an ancestor long thought dead. “I was the first to be betrayed,” whispered the ancestor. "I shall see it repeated no more... or I shall see to it that it is.

Kael was standing in front of me. “What do you want?” he asked.

To see if the Luna remembers.” The figure chuckled. Or if she’ll die again… and this time, for good.

The aura of the ancestor was like a physical weight on me. “You must choose, Luna,” said the figure. “Save Kael and take your power… or let events unfold as they did. “One way is irreversible.”

A shadow with red eyes lunged at Kael. Aeliana smiled from the shadows. Teasing me.

My thoughts turned to my dying puppy, to the blood in the snow, to the silence of the grave. I looked over at Kael.

I decide to change everything, I roared back.

My seal flared, exploding into white light and making the pack house shake in its foundations. Aeliana hissed and melted away into the darkness. The ancestor grinned.

I was standing in the center of the rubble, my eyes blazing with savage power of a goddess. I was not the girl who had died any longer.

I was the Luna who would rewrite fate.