SLOAN
The bread was hard again. I'd been taking from the kitchen scraps by the servants door for almost three years now and you'd think by three years I would've just accepted it. The bread is always going to be hard Sloan, get over it. And yet I still could not.
I stood at the window in the east corridor and ate it anyway. Outside the training grounds were already busy even though the sun hadn't fully come up yet, just that grey noon light that makes everything look like it's still deciding, I watched the soldiers run drills without really seeing them, i was good at that, just sort of existing somewhere without being fully there. The palace had a lot of spaces like tha no one checked, corners no one thought about. I'd found most of them.
The Moonblood Palace was beautiful. I mean it genuinely, even now. The walls were this pale stone that caught the light around midday and the whole building would just glow. Growing up the sisters would've called it the Moon Goddess's blessing or whatever, I knew better now. But knowing better and feeling better are different things and sometimes I still stood and looked at it. I heard Kael's footsteps at the end of the corridor, I always hear him first, something about the way he walked, like he was never in a hurry but also like nothing was ever going to stop him either. He appeared from the far end already fully dressed, hair still wet from washing, golden eyes finding me immediately the way they always did and three years into this marriage and i still did not understand how he did that. The Palace was full of people and it was always me first. "You're up early," he said, "So are you."
He came and stood by me at the window, not too close. We had a whole system about that. He looked at the bread in my hand. "That looks terrible,” "It is terrible,” "I could", "No." I didn't even let him finish. "If you send food to my room the whole eastern wing starts whispering about the Alpha taking pity on his wolfless Luna and I'd rather just eat the bad bread, honestly." He didn't argue, that was actually one of the things that made me worried, he just didn't push. We stood there for a minute. Down below one of the younger soldiers missed a step and the others laughed at him and the sound came up through the window all light and easy and I thought about how young they all looked. "The elders are meeting tonight," Kael said. "I know,” I replied as I looked at the soldiers again. "I know what they're going to say. You don't have to build up to it." "But It's not alright," he said. Quiet. "I need you to know that. "Kael, please don't." I am not angry. I was too tired to be angry. "Don't say something tonight that you can't say tomorrow too. We've been here already ."
He went quiet.I finished the bread , it tasted exactly as bad as it looked.The seamstress came at nine, she was a fine young lady that looked very professional. She spent the whole fitting not quite looking at my face which I was used to by now, it was basically the palace default setting when it came to me. Not mean, not cruel, just silence . Like I was a thing that made people unsure of the rules, the wolfless Luna, the one who hadn't given him an heir, the one who wasn’t meant to be their Luna. That was me and I'd stopped trying to be anything different a while back.
"The collar is too high," I said. "I'll fix that my Lady." She was quick, efficient and reliable, she was one of the best at her job. I honestly appreciated that, people who are just good at what they do without needing anything from you. She caught sight of the mark on my collarbone when she adjusted the neckline, the moon shape, right there at the base of my throat. She looked and then didn't look, the same as everyone.
Sister Maren at the orphanage used to say it meant I was moonborn that I was special . I'd believed that for the longest of time, but over here in the empire it meant nothing but a strange mark . A strange mark on a strange Luna and with no wolf, no child, three years and nothing to show for any of it. The seamstress packed up and left. I stood in front of the mirror for longer than I meant to, silver white hair, grey eyes, a face that turned heads around.
My favourite place in the whole palace was the archive. Cold, badly lit, staffed by people who cared more about the parchments than anything happening in the present day. I loved it. The books didn't look at me like I was a problem to be solved. They'd been here long before I arrived and they didn't need me to make sense. There was a section in the back corner I'd been reading from for almost a year. I came across some documents that where arranged in no specific order , I'd been reading them one by one for a while now, but I didn't know exactly what I was looking for, I knew their was something in these documents. Today I decided to spread out yesterday's chart, weighted the corners with the stones I keep in my pocket for exactly this, and found where I'd left off. The map showed four different ancient empires across four regions speaking four different languages with different handwriting , having different territorial establishments. All forgotten. "You're still doing this." I didn't look up. "Did you follow me or do you actually have a reason to be here?"
"Returning a ledger." Doran dropped it on a shelf nearby and sat himself down in the opposite chair with the ease of a man who had long since stopped standing on ceremony. He'd been palace steward for over forty years. He'd watched enough elders and Alphas and councils come and go that basically nothing impressed him anymore. He was one of like three people in this building who talked to me like I was a normal person and not a complication. "So what are you actually looking for?" he asked. I thought about his question for a while before answering. "Something that explains why these four empires are no where to be found. He looked at the margin note. Didn't say anything for a bit which was, again, why I liked him. "Elders meeting tonight," he said finally, "Everyone keeps telling me that." "Because everyone's scared. Scared people make too big of a deal about things."
I looked at him. "What do you know Doran. Actually."He was quiet for a moment. Then: "Three days ago. A woman came to the east gate, asked for a private audience with the Alpha, I don't know what she said. The elders were called the next morning."I looked back at the parchment.
"Right," I said. But I felt something was about to happen soon, the way you sometimes just know. I didn't say anything else and neither did he and we sat in silence for a while , and I looked around all only to see all that has been recorded by someone unknown. Look at the cramped handwriting in the margin and thought: someone else noticed. Someone else thought something didn't fit. And they filed it and it got forgotten. I wasn't going to let that happen to mine.
