THE LUNA HE THREW AWAY

Sovereign

Six weeks after the Rite, the Hollow was ordinary. Ordinary meant nothing hurt and nothing was easy. The pool was still. I didn’t look into it. I didn’t need to anymore.

The morning was gray, the sky low, and the air full of wet earth and new grass. I sat on a flat stone by the pool. Old covenant papers lay around me. I wrote notes in the margins in my own handwriting, not my father’s, not Cass’s, not the Council’s. Just mine. Sometimes the ink smudged. Sometimes I crossed things out and rewrote them sideways.

Jax arrived, carrying a basket of bread and cheese, looking smug as hell. He wore an apron, flour in his hair, and a smile that said he’d gotten away with something.

He plopped down beside me and handed me a slice of bread, still warm. “I made this. Eat it and tell me I’m a genius.”

I took a bite. It was good. Too much salt.

“You know, for a Sovereign, you’re a terrible liar,” Jax said. He nudged me with his elbow. “You ever going to come run the kitchens with me?”

“Someday,” I said. “When the world stops needing me to break things.”

He grinned. “You’ll hate it. Too much peace.”

We ate in silence, arguing about nothing. Jax insisted cheese was better than butter. I said he was a snob. He threw a crust at me and missed. It was the best conversation I’d had in months.

The Hollow felt alive again, not with ghosts, but with something like hope. Cass was off working on the records. The Silver Cells were gone. The Council was quieter now, less sharp, more like old people arguing whose turn it was to fix the roof. Kael sent word sometimes. His letters were short, all news, no poetry. He was rebuilding as he said he would. I missed him, but the ache was softer, like a bruise fading.

As we finished breakfast, a runner arrived. She was a girl from the Exiles, hair in two braids, eyes alert as storm glass. She handed me a folded note, with no return address and no seal.

I opened it. One line, Fen’s handwriting, jagged and unmistakable:

Found something. You’re going to want to see this.

There was no detail and no explanation. But Fen never asked for help unless it mattered. The last time he sent a note, we found the Council’s hidden records, but this seemed just as urgent, maybe even more. I tried to guess: was it another secret room, something thought gone, or proof of a vanished pack? Perhaps Fen had found signs that old alliances were awakening, or that a new power was rising in the dark. My heart pounded as I read the message again. Was it a threat, a truth, or something that could set the forest alight once more? Whatever Fen had uncovered, it was enough to tear me from the ordinary and into the coming storm.

I folded the message and tucked it into my pocket.

Jax watched me, his smile fading a little. “Trouble?”

“Always.”

He snorted. “Good. Wouldn’t want you getting bored.”

I looked up at the sky. It wasn’t the moon, just the sky, plain, gray, and full of clouds. I thought about my father, the letter, and Kael somewhere in Thornridge, building something new from what was left. I thought about Fen, moving through the land like a shadow, searching for what was hidden.