I Was His Luna Until He Forgot Me

CHAPTER 8:THE ADVISOR WHO KNOWS TOO MUCH

LUCIAN DAVEN

I waited until Kael’s footsteps faded away before releasing the breath I had been holding. Only then did my hands begin to shake.

They had been steady the whole time in the vault. Even when I told him I had no explanation and also when I swore I was innocent and meant every word. Now that I was alone, I leaned against the cold stone wall and let my composure fall apart. It had been threatening to break since the moment he asked me to tell the story again and slower.

I didn't know everything. I didn't know what had really happened to Kael in the Blackveil Swamp, who had done it, or why but from the first week, I knew something about the man we had pulled from that swamp didn't make sense.

I closed my eyes and let my memory float to that night properly for the first time in eight months. A search party of twelve, including me, had been sent to find Kael three days after he failed to return. We followed his trail for hours. It grew colder with every step until, just after dawn, we found him at the edge of the swamp. He lay collapsed in the mud. His coat was soaked through, and his skin was far too pale for a living wolf. I rushed to him, relief flooding through me so strongly that my knees nearly gave out. He was alive and that was all that mattered at that moment. I had already begun thinking about what I would tell the court. Their king had survived.

Then his eyes opened. They were red instead of amber and the first thing he said wasn't my name.

“Where is my crown?” His voice sounded like Kael's; the words, tone, and even the way he spoke them were almost exactly the same but something was wrong.

Maybe it was the shock of the transformation. That was what I thought. Trauma could change a person's voice, behavior, and even the way they carried themselves. I held on to that explanation while standing there in the mud with his blood on my hands because the other possibility was too terrible to face. What if the man I had just pulled from the swamp wasn't really the king I had sworn my life to protect? I couldn't deal with that thought while twelve frightened and exhausted warriors looked to me for answers.

By the time we carried him back to the castle, he was already giving orders. He knew the names of court officials he should never have known in that form. He spoke as if he had known them for years. Then he walked into the throne room like he had done it a thousand times before. There was no hesitation or any form of confusion in his actions. Not even a hint of someone who had supposedly lost everything he knew about himself.

The court had spent three days terrified and divided without their king. So when they saw that confidence, they knelt.

I could have stopped them. I could have stood before the council that very night and said, “Something isn't right. We need to wait. We need answers. We shouldn't place a crown on someone's head simply because he speaks like a king.”

I had the authority to do it. Advisors before me had halted coronations over far smaller doubts. But I chose to be silent. I convinced myself I was showing mercy. The court couldn't survive another leadership crisis so soon after nearly losing their king. A king who remembered being a king, as strange as that memory seemed, was easier for frightened people to accept than a leader who admitted he had no idea who he was. I convinced myself I was protecting Kael, protecting the court, and protecting everyone. I thought I was buying us time until the strange behavior died and the Kael I knew returned from whatever the swamp had done to him.

Eight months. I had carried that lie for eight months and every week that passed without seeing the Kael I knew, I pushed my doubts further down. Until tonight. Elara Vayne had walked into this court with proof that the real Kael Draven might still be alive somewhere in a hunter's cell. That was when everything I had buried came rushing back.

I pushed away from the wall and returned to the vault. I only wanted to see for myself again. Maybe I had missed something while Kael was there. Maybe there was a clue that could explain the missing stone without pointing to the thing I feared most. Someone had taken it. Maybe, someone I trusted. The vault door was still partly open. I entered with a torch in hand and knelt beside the empty pedestal.

That was when I noticed the marks.

Three long scratches cut across the stone base. They were deep enough for fresh dust to collect inside them and couldn't have been an act done years ago. They had been made within the last few weeks. I ran my fingers over the grooves and shivered.

I had seen wolf claw marks before. I had also seen vampire nails scrape stones during training fights. These were neither. The spacing was too wide for a wolf's paw and the marks were too rough to be made by a vampire. Whatever had entered this sealed vault and taken the binding stone wasn't completely wolf or fully vampire either. It wasn't anything I had a name for.

I swallowed hard. I should tell Kael. I should climb the stairs, wake him if he had finally managed to sleep, and show him the marks. I should have done that with every doubt I had carried for the past eight months but the same fear stopped me. Kael was already falling apart tonight. He was already questioning his own identity, demanding answers. What would one more impossible discovery do to him?

I could protect him a little longer. I could find out what had made those marks before giving him another reason to even question the ground under his feet.

It was the same lie. Just wearing a different face and I knew it even as I used it to justify my silence.

I rose and made to leave. It was only then, at the vault's threshold, that the hairs on the back of my neck rose. I immediately had an unmistakable feeling and knowing that I was being watched.

I stood perfectly still and listened. Nothing. The torches along the corridor only flickered and their flames cast long shadows that moved with the draft.

“Who’s there?” I called.

Silence answered me. There was no sound of shuffling footsteps or sound of breathing. Yet I couldn't shake off that strange feeling. Someone was there but it was just beyond my sight. I quickly swung my torch toward the corridor as if to catch any figure. Whoever had been watching me was gone.

Or perhaps… It had only been my imagination?