CHAPTER 6. The Luna Sovereign
895 Words
Luna didn’t speak for a long time.
The ring still sat in her palm, cool again. The vision had faded, but the echo of it the weight of it clung to her bones.
Her. On a mountain. Wolves kneeling. A crown hanging in the air like a moon caught mid-rise.
“I’m not…” She swallowed. “I’m not a queen. I’m not anything. I didn’t ask for this.”
Kael stood across from her, silent as frost.
“No one asks to be born marked,” he said finally. “But that doesn’t change who you are.”
She shook her head. “You said I was Moonborne. That’s already impossible. Now you’re saying I’m… what? The next Luna Sovereign?”
Kael stepped forward, slow and careful. “The Moonborne line always produced females. Alphas of the soul. They didn’t lead with brute force they led with instinct. Wisdom. Balance. They were born during rare alignments of the three moons and carried the Luna Mark: a triple crescent.”
Luna looked down at her wrist and collarbone.
Two crescents now.
The third hadn’t come.
Yet.
“It’s just a mark,” she whispered.
Kael’s voice lowered. “No. It’s a bloodline. A destiny. And it means the Council will come for you.”
Luna met his eyes. “Then I’ll be ready.”
The next morning, Rhea barely reacted when Luna told her about the third mark prophecy.
“I was afraid of this,” she said softly. “That’s why I kept the ring from you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me I could be a Sovereign?”
“Because the last one died in my arms.”
Luna froze.
“She was your mother,” Rhea said. “Not the one who raised you. The one who birthed you. Her name was Elaria of the Crescent Flame, last sovereign of the Moonborne. She died trying to stop the Council from wiping us all out.”
Luna sank into a chair. “Why didn’t you ever tell me this?”
Rhea sighed. “Because if you remembered too soon, you wouldn’t survive. The awakening comes in stages. Power first. Memory second. Purpose last.”
“And now?”
“Now,” Rhea said, reaching for the pendant around Luna’s neck, “you have to choose: hide again or prepare to lead.”
That night, Luna stood in the backyard, staring up at the sky.
The moon glowed pale and wide above the trees, still full. Still watching.
The wind carried a sound soft and distant.
A howl.
Not one.
Many.
She took a step forward but didn’t leave the yard.
“Come out,” she said into the darkness. “I know you’re there.”
Kael emerged from the shadows, dressed in black, his eyes silver in the moonlight. “You sensed me.”
“I felt you,” she corrected. “I always feel you.”
They stared at each other for a long moment.
Kael finally spoke. “The Council is coming. You need to learn control. Fast.”
“Are you going to train me?”
“No,” he said. “I’m going to push you until you break. And then I’m going to build you back stronger.”
“Romantic,” she muttered.
He smirked faintly. “You want romance, you chose the wrong bloodline.”
“I didn’t choose anything,” she snapped. “And I’m not trying to be a Sovereign.”
“But you are one,” he said. “Start acting like it.”
Training began the next morning.
Kael met her in the woods, away from prying eyes. He set a strict regiment combat drills, endurance runs, resistance training and taught her to sense energy, read movement, and harness the low hum in her blood.
“You’ve been feeling the bond, haven’t you?” he asked on the third day.
Luna hesitated. “What bond?”
“The one between you and me.”
She looked away. “I thought I was just going crazy.”
Kael stepped closer. “When two wolves are tied by fate, the bond pulls at first. Subtle. Then painful. And then… inevitable.”
“You sound thrilled.”
“I’m not. It complicates everything.”
Luna clenched her fists. “Because I’m a threat to your pack?”
“Because I’m already bound,” he said.
Her chest tightened. “To who?”
Kael’s voice was quiet. “A Council-born heir. Arranged by my father. Political. Hollow.”
Luna looked up at him. “And yet you’re here. With me.”
“Because I don’t want her,” he said. “I want you.”
That night, Luna dreamed again.
This time, she stood in the middle of a burning city. Wolves fought in the streets silver against black. A voice whispered in her ear: Choose the fire, or be consumed by it.
When she awoke, her hands were glowing.
The third crescent had not appeared.
But the space between the two was now golden like fire forged between shadows.
Rhea gasped when she saw it. “The alignment has begun.”
“What happens when the third appears?”
Rhea looked grim. “You stop being Luna Hart.”
“Then who am I?”
“You become Luna Sovereign of the Moonborne Flame.”
- Writer
