THE LUNA HE THREW AWAY

The Third Witness

The next morning, I woke to rain tapping on the canvas and Fen muttering under his breath as he tried to light a fire with wet twigs. Cass had managed to find coffee, real and bitter, so strong it could have stripped paint. Kael sat with his back to a tree, watching the gray woods as if he expected an ambush.

We were supposed to be safe, or as close to safe as anyone gets in the borderlands. Three witnesses. That was the goal. Ashveil was in. Ashveil, fierce and proud, stood for the northern settlements, their banners showing the red wolf and mountain lilies, defenders of old forests and ancient promises. Their stone keeps still bear the scars from the Border War, and their people wear their pride like armor. They remember every slight, and every time the southern lords tried to claim the high ground for their own. Ironveil was complicated.

Their people had long ago traded protection for power, bartering oaths with outsiders and keeping secrets even from each other. Silver mines bankroll their cities and the river markets, bustling with merchants, are known for both luxury and betrayal. Their allegiances shift like the river’s course, and so does their loyalty- no one ever trusted them to hold the same side for very long, especially not since the Sundering Pact.

The Exiles, the ghosts on the edge of everyone’s stories, were supposed to be our last hope. They were the shadowfolk, living deep in the wildwoods beyond law and council, survivors and outcasts whose word meant more than any decree. Campfires flicker in the ruin-glades where they dwell, and old songs speak of the Nightfall and the price they paid for refusing to kneel. A witness from each faction was more than tradition; it was the only way the Rite could bind our world together. Without all three, any promise was just an excuse for the next war.

No one spoke for a long time. We just sat with the coffee, the rain, and the ache that comes from sleeping on roots and old regrets.

Fen broke the silence. “We can’t walk into the Exile camp like we’re owed anything. They don’t owe us. They don’t owe anyone.”

Cass nodded, rubbing her hands together. “They’ll want to see you, Lira. Not the Sovereign. You. They hate the Council, hate the Alphas, hate anyone who thinks they’ve got a birthright.”

Kael snorted. “Sounds like home.”

“Not your kind of home,” Fen said, and for once, there was no mockery in it, just the flat, brutal truth.

We packed up and moved out, following Fen through a maze of game trails and half-buried tracks. The woods here were dense but open, the kind of place where you never really felt alone, no matter how hard you tried.

After a while, Fen stopped and knelt, drawing a spiral and three dots in the mud. "Peaceful intent," he explained, not looking up. "Or as close as we get." The symbol itself was old, older than the borders, and meant to show you came in good faith; one hand open, three witnesses at your back. Fen's mother had taught it to him, saying it was first used when the clans met after the Nightfall. The Nightfall was the dark year when the world split and the old gods turned away, a time when the sun barely rose and whole villages vanished under shadow. It was the wound history never let heal, and everything that came after bore its mark. The spiral was a promise so simple even the rain would recognize it: that in the aftermath, enemies could still choose mercy over ruin.

Cass took the lead then, muttering the old words under her breath, her voice low and soothing. It was a language I’d never learned, one that felt like it belonged to the roots and the rain more than to people. After a while, shapes started to appear between the trees, faces, bodies, all silver eyes and quiet, watching us with the kind of stillness that makes you nervous.

The old man came first. His hair was white, his eyes were the color of bruised steel, and his voice was soft but sharp. “You come to claim the old law, girl?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything more complicated than yes.

He looked me up and down, then glanced at Fen and Cass. “You bring witnesses. You bring scars. But do you bring truth?”

I swallowed. “I bring what I am. I don’t know if that’s enough.”

He grinned, all teeth. “That’s the only answer that ever is.”

There was a kind of council, then; an argument, a negotiation, a memory. The Exiles did not sit in a circle or stand in neat lines. They clustered and moved, voices overlapping, each person staking out a piece of the truth. A young woman with a jagged scar on her cheek demanded, "What do you want from us, outsider? Is it protection, or our silence?" Someone else, an old man with ash-colored braids, leaned forward with sharp eyes. "When you leave here, who do you become? Will you remember us, or will you vanish like smoke?"

Another voice rose above the rest, a middle-aged figure with arms folded, gaze unwavering. "Would you save your enemy," they asked, "if it meant losing everything else you have left? Answer, yes or no." Questions came fast, some practical, some like riddles.

"Who do you hate enough to burn the world?" said one. "If you had to choose between the law and your own heart, which survives?" I tried to answer as honestly as I could. Sometimes my voice shook. Sometimes, I said nothing at all, letting the silence speak for me.

Cass vouched for me. Fen vouched for me, in his own way, by not walking away. Kael, to his credit, kept his mouth shut. That was his best gift all day.

The old man finally nodded. “We’ll witness. But you break the Silver Cells. All of them. No more cages.” For a heartbeat, I hesitated, the words settling like stones in my chest. The Silver Cells- steel-barred prisons laced with old magic, were where the Council kept those they most feared, Exiles and traitors locked away because no one trusted them to ever be free. Breaking them meant more than opening doors. It meant upending the rules that kept us safe, or claimed to. If the Silver Cells fell, it would unleash not just the innocent but the vengeful, the desperate, and the truly dangerous. Old grudges would flare. Alliances could shatter overnight. There was no telling who, or what, might be waiting on the other side of those bars, and chaos would be as likely as mercy. But still, I nodded.

I looked at Cass, and she nodded back. “I already promised.”

He smiled, and for a second I saw someone’s grandfather, not a legend. “Then it’s done.”

The Exiles faded into the trees, just as silently as they’d arrived.

We walked back to camp with the rain still falling, quieter now. Cass broke out a bottle of something strong and sweet, and for a while, we let ourselves believe that maybe, just maybe, we’d pulled off a miracle.

But hope is a hungry thing. It eats you if you let it.

That night, Fen sat beside me, carving a piece of wood into a spiral. “The thing about promises,” he said, “is that they cost more than you think.”

I nodded, feeling the weight of every word I’d spoken.

He me the carving. “For luck. Or whatever comes next.”

I tucked it into my pocket, next to the letter, and tried to believe in both.

As I drifted off, Kael’s voice reached me through the dark. “Three witnesses. You did it.”handed

“No,” I said. “We did.”

But I didn’t sleep easy. Somewhere out there, Jax was still in danger. Somewhere, Aldric was still moving his pieces. And tomorrow, we’d have to face them both.