BLESSED LUNA RISING

blessed Luna chapter 5

# Blessed Luna Rising

**By Melisa Warui**

## Chapter 5: The Queen's Writ

Queen Isendra received them in her private solar, a round chamber at the top of the eastern tower, hung with tapestries the color of old wine. A single candelabra burned on a table of dark wood. The Queen sat beside it in a plain grey night robe, her silver hair unbound, looking less like a monarch than a woman who had been awake for a very long time.

Chancellor Voren stood at her left hand, grey velvet immaculate despite the hour. A parchment lay on the table before him, bound in black ribbon.

Luna bowed. Kael bowed beside her, a fraction slower, his face carefully blank.

"Keeper. Master Dorsen." The Queen's voice was dry and quiet. "Forgive the hour. The Chancellor has brought a matter that he feels cannot wait for morning."

"Your Majesty," Voren said smoothly, "I take no pleasure in it. But the safety of Valtheris demands vigilance." He lifted the parchment. "This writ comes from the Council of the Northern Coast, sealed and witnessed. It states that the man calling himself Kael Dorsen, merchant-scholar, does not exist."

Luna felt Kael go very still beside her.

"It further states," Voren continued, "that the bearer of that name is in truth Kael Varenthal, son of the late Lord Regent, wanted for the theft of the Regency seal and the forgery of documents. He is accused of crossing the border under a false name, carrying a forged letter to this court."

"The letter bears my own seal," the Queen said mildly.

"Which a skilled forger might have copied. Or a man with access to the right ink and the right hand." Voren's pale eyes slid to Kael. "I do not accuse Your Majesty of being deceived. Only of being too generous."

Luna's pulse hammered in her throat. She turned and looked at Kael.

He did not look away. But he did not deny it either.

"Is it true?" she asked quietly.

"Part of it," Kael said.

---

The solar was silent. Somewhere below, faint music drifted up from the festival, bright and utterly out of place.

"Master Dorsen," the Queen said. "Perhaps you will tell us which part."

Kael drew a long breath. When he spoke, his voice was steady, but Luna heard the effort beneath it.

"My name is Kael Varenthal. My father was Lord Regent of the Northern Coast. He died four years ago, and the Council took power in his name. They promised relief when the harvest failed. They gave us ledgers instead." His jaw tightened. "I discovered that grain sent to the coast was being sold south at triple the price. When I tried to expose it, they declared me a traitor."

"Then the seal?" Voren said softly.

"I took it. Yes. To prove the forgeries in the Council's own records." Kael met the Chancellor's gaze without flinching. "I never forged anything. I stole what was already mine by blood, to save people who were starving."

"A pretty tale."

"It is the truth."

"Which you concealed from this court," Voren said, "and from the Keeper, who has been guarding the archives with a fugitive at her elbow."

Luna's temper flared, bright and cold. "The Keeper is capable of judging whom she guards, Chancellor."

"Of course." He bowed his head, smiling. "I only wonder, Luna, how clearly you are judging at present."

The words slid under her ribs like a thin blade. Her face went hot, then white. He knew. Perhaps not everything, but enough. A servant's glance, a guard's gossip. The dance. The long absence from the festival.

She straightened her spine and met his eyes. "My judgment has never been questioned in this palace."

"And I would not begin now." His voice was kind. That was the worst of it. "I only ask that you consider whether affection might cloud a Keeper's duty."

"Enough."

The Queen did not raise her voice, but the word fell across the room like a closing door.

---

Isendra rose slowly. She was a small woman, but the candlelight made her seem taller, carved from the same stone as the palace itself.

"Chancellor. You have done your duty, and I thank you. Leave the writ."

"Majesty, the Council expects an answer within the week. If the fugitive is not surrendered—"

"The Council expects?" One silver eyebrow rose. "I am the Queen of Valtheris. The Council may expect rain. I will answer when it suits me."

Voren's smile did not waver, but something behind it hardened. "As you wish. I only hope Your Majesty will not regret trusting a stranger over her own court."

"Goodnight, Chancellor."

He bowed and left. The door closed behind him with a soft, final click.

The Queen let out a long breath and sank back into her chair. For the first time, Luna saw her age.

"Sit," she said. "Both of you."

They sat. Isendra looked at Kael for a long moment.

"I knew," she said.

Kael blinked. "Majesty?"

"I knew who you were when your first letter arrived, eight months ago. The Regent's seal, the careful scholar's hand, the questions only his son would think to ask. I have known your family for forty years." Her mouth curved faintly. "Your father once told me his son was either going to save the coast or set fire to it."

Kael made a sound halfway between a laugh and a breath. "He wasn't wrong."

"He rarely was." The Queen's gaze moved to Luna. "And you, Keeper. You have been wondering why I would choose a woman without noble blood or marriage to guard the heart of Valtheris."

"I have," Luna admitted.

"Because the old stories do not lie." Isendra folded her hands. "The Blessed Luna is no treasure to be seized. It answers only to one who serves freely, who needs nothing from it, and who is not owned by court, crown, or husband. I searched for such a person for thirty years." Her eyes were warm. "I found you in my own archives, correcting a scribe's error in a grain ledger."

Luna's throat tightened. "Your Majesty, I never knew."

"You were not meant to. A free heart cannot be chosen by those who watch it. It can only be recognized." She turned back to Kael. "And you, young man, were sent because your need is true, and your honesty, though late, is real. The blessing does not ask for perfection. It asks for sincerity."

"Then you trust us," Kael said slowly.

"I trust what the moon will do. The rest is up to you." The Queen's expression sharpened. "But hear me. The Chancellor is not merely a cautious man. He has wanted the Blessed Luna for years. If it wakes, the one who controls it controls the harvests, the tides, the very fortune of the realm. He will not stop at a writ."

"What can we do?" Luna asked.

"Find it first. Open it on the night of the full moon, as the founders intended. Do it freely, together, and do it before he finds a way to force the door." The Queen lifted the black-ribboned parchment and, with a calm gesture, held it to the candle flame. The edge curled, blackened, and caught. "I will give you seven nights. After that, I cannot protect either of you from the Council."

The paper burned to ash in her silver tray.

---

They walked back down the tower stair in silence.

Halfway down, Luna stopped. Kael stopped a step below, and for a moment the lantern light made them equal in height.

"You lied to me," she said.

"Yes."

"Not about your homeland. Not about the hunger." Her voice was low. "About who you are."

"I was afraid." He did not look away, and that was what kept her anger from settling. "If you knew I was the Regent's son and a hunted man, I thought you would send me away. And I wasn't ready to go."

She searched his face. She saw exhaustion, regret, and something steadier beneath them. She thought of the cistern, the soft pulse of silver light, the free heart that could not be commanded.

"I don't forgive easily," she said.

"I know."

"But I don't discard people either." She took a breath. "No more secrets, Kael. Not even small ones. Whatever happens in the next seven nights, I need to hear it from you first."

"You will." He placed his hand over his heart. "On my name. My real one."

A slow, tired smile touched her mouth. "Then we begin again, Kael Varenthal."

"Luna Averin." He bowed, deeply, as he had not bowed in the courtyard. "I would be honored."

Far below, the festival bells rang the midnight hour. The palace stood around them, vast and ancient and listening, and for the first time Luna felt it not as a burden but as a witness.

Seven nights. A rival waiting in grey velvet. A moon that would not wait.

And a man beside her whom she had known for two days, and already did not want to lose.

---

*End of Chapter 5*