THE LUNA HE THREW AWAY

Aldric Thornridge

Nobody slept. Kael leaned against a thick root, eyes closed, and jaw clenched. Fen had disappeared into the darkness an hour ago and still hadn’t returned. I sat three feet from the pool, close enough to see my reflection but far enough to pretend I wasn’t thinking about it. The water stayed still. No wind, no current. It was black and calm, as if it were waiting for me. Once, Fen had told a story about the first Sovereign who tried to claim the Hollow—a legend about a pool that never froze or dried, filled with memories the earth couldn’t keep buried. Some said the pool was older than the walls around us. Others whispered that its surface was a door, not a mirror, meant for secrets, not wishes. I didn’t know what to believe, except that it felt like looking into a place that remembered everything. I’d been staring at it for an hour. Maybe more. “You’re going to look eventually,” Kael said. His eyes were still closed. “I’m not looking for your commentary.” “That wasn’t commentary. That was an observation.” I didn’t answer. The pool reflected the gray-black sky, the moon hidden behind clouds. My face was a pale blur, and my eyes stayed silver and steady, like a light that wouldn’t turn off. I thought about what Fen had said. Not the future. Not visions. The thing underneath the story you’ve been telling yourself. I’d been telling myself a lot of stories. Twenty-two years’ worth. I leaned forward. The surface didn’t ripple when I leaned in. Instead, it seemed to sharpen, as if it were waiting for me to notice. At first, I thought it was my reflection. Same face, same mud-streaked jaw, same ruined dress. But the eyes were wrong. Not silver. Brown. My father’s brown. I went very still. This wasn’t a memory. Memories have gaps and soft edges, a blur from trying to remember. This was sharp. It was happening now. My father stood in a room I didn’t recognize. There were stone walls, a low fire, the scent of pine, and something metallic beneath it all. He looked younger than I remembered, maybe five years younger, and he stood the way he did when he was angry but trying to hide it. His shoulders were back, his hands loose at his sides, and he was very still. Across from him was a man I’d never seen, but I knew who he was. The same jaw as Kael. The same way of taking up space. Older, harder, the gold in his eyes had gone cold. It was Aldric Thornridge, Kael's father. Aldric Thornridge. My father said something. I couldn’t hear it because the pool only showed images, not sound, but I could see what he meant. He was refusing. Whatever Aldric wanted, my father was saying no. Aldric’s expression didn’t change. That was the worst part. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t surprised. He just nodded once, like someone crossing an item off a list. Two men came in from behind my father. I pulled back from the pool. My hands shook. I pressed them to my thighs, breathed through my nose, and stared at the ground. The shaking didn’t stop. I gave up and just let it happen. “Lira.” Kael’s voice. I didn’t look up. “What did you see?” “Nothing.” A pause. “Okay.” He didn’t push me. I almost wished he had; it would have given me something to fight. Instead, there was just the quiet of the Hollow, the low hum in the ground, and my hands shaking in my lap. Fen came back. He didn’t make any sound; he was just suddenly there at the edge of the light, reading my face the way he always did, like a document he’d already studied. “You looked,” he said. “You said it shows the truth.” “I said it shows the thing underneath the story you’ve been telling yourself.” He sat down across from me, his silver eyes careful. “Those aren’t always the same thing.” “My father," I stopped. Started again. “He didn’t die in a border accident.” Fen didn’t say anything. “He was in a room with Aldric. He refused Aldric’s offer. And then...” I stopped again. My throat tightened in a way I couldn’t control. “Aldric nodded, and two men came in.” The fire was the only sound for a moment. “No,” Fen said. “He didn’t die in a border accident.” “You knew.” “I suspected. I didn’t have proof.” He held my gaze. “The pool is proof.” “What did he refuse?” My voice was flat. I wanted it that way. I needed it because the other option was letting the feeling in my chest take over, and I couldn’t let that happen now. Fen was quiet, not because he was hesitating, but because he was thinking. He was deciding how much to tell me. “Your father wasn’t an Omega by birth. He was the last Greymoor, the oldest Sovereign bloodline here. The Greymoor line is more than just a name; it’s tied to power that the other families fear, and there are stories that say only a Greymoor can challenge the order set by the Sovereigns. As long as the bloodline survived, Aldric knew his own claim would never be safe. When he learned the truth, he gave your father a choice: renounce the bloodline, destroy the records, and raise you as an ordinary human, or face death and have Aldric erase your line himself.” “Or he’d kill him anyway and do it himself.” “Yes.” I sat with that. My father spent his life being called an Omega, the lowest rank. He let them call him that and built a life in that small space—a wife, a daughter, and a house at the edge of the territory. He made himself invisible. I grew up thinking that was all he was, just a quiet, careful man. But when he died on a border run when I was seven, supposedly in the wrong place, I realized there was more to his story than I knew. He wasn’t in the wrong place. My father died in that room, refusing Aldric's command. Aldric ordered his death when he wouldn’t comply.