All Chapters of The Luna He Gave Away : Chapter 11 - Chapter 19

Lyra's POVHe came to find me the next day.That was the first unusual thing. In the two weeks I had been at Blackthorne, Kael had never sought me out before midday. Our interactions happened at meals or in passing, or when I went looking for him with something specific to say. He did not come to me.He knocked on the door of my chambers at the hour after breakfast, and when I opened it, he was already moving."Walk with me," he said.It wasn't a question, but it wasn't quite a command either. It was the tone he used when something needed to be discussed and he had already decided where.I followed him.He took me to the small study off the west corridor, not his main study, the one he used for official work, but a smaller room with two chairs and a low table and a window that looked out over the inner courtyard. The kind of room that said this was a conversation, not a briefing.He closed the door and remained standing."Queen Isolde is coming to Blackthorne," he said.I looked at hi

Lyra's POVThey arrived at noon.I heard the horses first—more of them than the messenger had suggested, which told me that Isolde had decided at some point between sending word and crossing the border that this visit warranted a larger show of presence than she had originally indicated. That was probably deliberate. Most things Isolde did were deliberate.I was standing in the main entrance hall with Kael when they came through the gates.Isolde descended from her carriage with the unhurried grace of a woman who had never in her life needed to rush toward anything because things had always arranged themselves to wait for her. She looked exactly as she always looked—composed, elegant, warmly purposeful, the expression of someone arriving somewhere she had every right to be.Ronan came after her.He looked different from the ceremony hall. The composed certainty he had carried on that dais was still there, but something underneath it had shifted—a restlessness in the way he held himsel

Lyra's POVSix people were already seated when I walked into the council room.Nobody stood. Nobody smiled.I took the empty chair near the middle of the table, not the head or the far end, and folded my hands in front of me. The room smelled like old wood and candle wax. Maps were pinned to the wall behind the grey-haired man at the far end. Someone had left a cold cup of tea near the window.It felt like a room that had been having the same conversations for years.I was going to have to be careful about how I entered those conversations.The meeting opened without introduction or acknowledgment of my presence, which told me more than a formal welcome would have. These were people who had been running this pack's internal matters long before a Luna arrived, and they were going to continue running them the same way until I gave them a reason to think differently.I was fine with that.I wasn't here to announce myself. I was here to listen.The first item was eastern boundary maintena

Lyra's POVKael found me two days after I got back from the eastern quarters.I was in the small study off the west corridor going through the winter welfare requests when he walked in and set a folder on the desk in front of me."Gareth suggested you handle this," he said.I looked up. "Gareth.""He said you'd know what to do with it."He wasn't offering an opinion. He wasn't telling me what to think about the fact that the man who had called me a palace castoff in a corridor three weeks ago had just formally put my name forward for an assignment.He was waiting for me to pick up the folder.I picked it up."Eastern territory boundary dispute," he said. "Two families. Two seasons unresolved. It escalated last week; one blocked the other's access to the shared water source. I need it handled before winter."I opened it and started reading."How much authority do I have?" I asked."Enough to make a binding decision if it comes to that.""When do I leave?""Tomorrow morning. Gareth assi