Reign of the Forsaken Moon - Chapter 20: Chapter 20

The fires of battle had been extinguished, but the embers of war still burned beneath the surface.
Seraphina stood at the heart of her moonstone chamber, her armor discarded, her skin bare and scarred. In her hand was a scroll—delivered by a raven with the mark of the Eastern Court burned into its leg.
She hadn't opened it yet.
She didn't need to.
She knew what it said.
> Come alone, or they die.
A Dangerous Proposition
Darian slammed his fist against the war table when she showed him the message.
“They’re luring you. You can’t go.”
“She has something,” Seraphina said quietly. “Someone.”
She unrolled a second scroll—a parchment Mira had intercepted from the Eastern spies.
Drawn in blood ink was a simple sketch: Lyra and Kael, sleeping in their crystal sanctum.
Darian’s jaw tightened.
“Then we go and burn their palace to ash.”
“No.” Seraphina’s voice was sharp.
“If I don’t walk into that meeting alone, she’ll kill them before we cross her border.”
Mira stepped forward, eyes blazing. “You can’t trust her.”
“I don’t,” Seraphina said. “But I know her.”
The Journey East
At dawn, she left the Moonclaw stronghold under a veil of magic, her true form hidden beneath a cloak woven from shadowbeast fur. No guards. No banners.
Just one wolf.
Heading into the heart of enemy land.
She crossed the Black Thorns—jagged ridges of rock where nothing grew—and into the Hollow Pines, where whispers followed every footstep.
Each mile forward was a memory resurfacing.
The betrayal.
The abandonment.
The death she’d once embraced.
But something burned brighter than all of it now:
> Her children were alive.
And she would bring them home.
The Eastern Palace
The Wildfang Court was carved into obsidian cliffs above a storm-wracked sea.
Spirits howled through the wind.
Ancient guardians—half-wraith, half-beast—watched her silently as she entered the great hall.
And there, upon a throne of twisted bone and moonglass, sat Adraste.
Her mother.
Unaged. Unmoved.
But no longer untouchable.
To Seraphina’s surprise, she wasn’t alone in the chamber.
There were others.
A council of ancient alphas.
Bloodline keepers.
Witchwolves.
Seraphina’s lips curled into a smile.
> “I see you’ve gathered your puppets.”
Adraste rose, graceful and venomous. “I’ve gathered witnesses.”
“To my death?”
“To your ascension.”
A Terrible Offer
Adraste descended the steps slowly, circling Seraphina like a predator.
“You have power now,” she said. “Respect. Wolves who would die for you. But they don’t understand what you are.”
“And you do?”
“I gave birth to you,” Adraste said softly. “I bled the prophecy into the snow when you first opened your eyes.”
Seraphina stiffened.
“What prophecy?”
Adraste smiled. “The Twice-Born Queen. She who dies in betrayal and rises in flame. Not a Luna. Not an Alpha. But something… older.”
She gestured to the gathered council.
“They fear you. I do not. Join me. Let me shape what you’re meant to become.”
Seraphina’s silence stretched for too long.
Then—
> “Where are my children?”
Blood Ties and Broken Chains
Adraste’s gaze flicked to a side chamber.
A guard stepped out, dragging Kael and Lyra forward, bound by enchanted silver.
Seraphina’s rage ignited like wildfire.
Her wolf surged.
But she held it.
Barely.
Adraste raised a hand. “They are safe. For now.”
“Let them go,” Seraphina said. “You want me? You have me. But if they die, I swear—”
Adraste cut her off. “Swear what, daughter? That you’ll kill me?”
Her smile widened.
“You already did. Once.”
Seraphina froze.
“…what?”
The Hidden Truth
Adraste stepped closer.
“You think your first death was caused by betrayal? No. It was part of the rite. You were never meant to survive it. But you did. And when you rose, the prophecy began to stir.”
Seraphina’s voice was ice. “You planned my death?”
“I created it,” Adraste whispered. “To awaken your true form.”
Seraphina’s heart thundered in her chest.
Everything—everything—had been orchestrated.
Her suffering.
Her exile.
Her resurrection.
> “You used me.”
“You were born to be used,” Adraste said. “And now you can reclaim what’s yours.”
Choice and Consequence
She looked at her children.
Lyra, defiant even in chains.
Kael, trembling but unbroken.
She looked at her mother.
The architect of her pain.
And she made her choice.
Seraphina reached into her cloak—and pulled out a blade made from phoenix bone, etched with runes of binding.
Adraste’s eyes widened.
But she was too slow.
> Seraphina struck.
The blade pierced her mother’s heart.
The chamber erupted in chaos.
Council wolves shifted, spells ignited—
But Seraphina had already grabbed her children and shifted into her wolf form, blazing with power.
And as she howled, the chamber cracked with ancient force.
Escape
They ran.
Through smoke and magic and the screams of collapsing power.
Seraphina didn’t stop until the obsidian cliffs were behind them and the storm winds no longer carried her mother’s name.
They reached the border just as Moonclaw reinforcements arrived.
Darian was first to meet her.
He stared at the blood on her cloak, the children in her arms.
And then he embraced her.
No words.
Just truth.