Chapter Forty-Three – Council of Wolves
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gave him jurisdiction and a deadline. Halden tried off-site housing again and wilted under Thorne’s stare. Valeria asked for a formal address.
“You just heard it,” Thorne said, and rose.
Drones dimmed. Benches scraped. Crescent didn’t clap, it filed out.
We left in formation-Rhea at my shoulder, Cassia and Caius guarding, Thorne setting pace. My tablet lit with CrescentNet’s edits already leading the feed.
ELARA: I understand responsibility better than I understand privilege. THORNE: Elara is mine. Aeron is Crescent’s future.AERON: No yelly. Inside cookies.
“Balanced coverage,” Julian said, materializing at my elbow. “Support, criticism, and the cookie. Top-of-hour is ours.”
Supporters called it “Destiny-the first Luna without wolf. The little prince has better manners than half the council.”
Detractors snarled, “Weakness at the crown. Valemont takeover. Bastard heir-prove it or hide him.”
Thorne’s hand brushed the small of my back, unseen. “Don’t read them.”
“I’m not glass,” I said. He knew I’d still read them later, deciding what to carry and what to burn.
“Balanced enough?” Julian asked.
“Balanced,” I said. “Save the smear for Ashthorne.”
“They’ll push,” Cassia warned.
“Let them itch,” Thorne replied.
Aeron tugged my coat. “Mister Dwagon tired of yelly.”
“Mine too,” I said.
“East gallery,” Thorne decided.
The gallery gave us one wall of sea and sky, light scattering knives across the water. Rosemary and thyme breathed from the planters,
“Up,” Aeron ordered. Thorne swung him to his hip. Tiny hands pressed the glass. “Sky,” he
whispered.
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“Sky,” Thorne echoed.
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Julian checked his watch; Cassia checked his tie. “You keep wearing that color,” she said, “I might start telling people you dress for me.”
“I don’t,” he said, already smiling, “but I could be persuaded to accept a mood board.”
“My mood is chaos and cinnamon.”
“I’ll book two hours.”
“Make it three.”
“I’ll bring coffee.”
“Make it two,” she said, lips curving.
My mother pinged my phone. Proud of you. Say your name before they set it on fire. Let the boy give away a cookie-crumbs disarm.
I sent back a photo-Aeron’s hand and Thorne’s on the glass, smudged with sugar.
Luna Lyanna’s message followed. Wolves will howl. Bend to love, not noise.
“Twenty-three minutes,” Julian reported. “Supporters thrilled. Detractors distressed. The middle’s reposting ‘inside cookies’ to ‘inside voices.’ Balanced.”
“Save your sharpest takes for Ashthorne,” I said.
Aeron patted Thorne’s jaw with a buttery hand. “I yike dis house,” he announced. “It got sky windows. Cookies. Whea. An’ da lady who gived me tin.”
“Marís,” I said, smiling.
“And Daddy said home,” he added, leaning into Thorne’s chest.
“Home,” Thorne agreed, eyes closing like someone had pressed a palm to a bruise.
I looked out until horizon and glass lined so perfectly the world felt held. The noise would never fade. The knives wouldn’t dull. The cameras wouldn’t blink,
So I’d learn to swim-with a cookie in my pocket, a lens in my face, and a man at my shoulder who made home sound less like a spell and more like a plan.
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“I want rosemary in the terrace pots,” I said. “Cinnamon in the kitchen. And photos. Real ones.”
“Done, done, ongoing,” Julian said. “Frames already on the way.”
“Look at you,” Cassia teased. “Decorating like a queen.”
“Claiming,” I corrected. “There’s a difference.”
We stayed until the light softened and Aeron yawned. Back in our suite, soup waited, bread, a dish of cinnamon sugar that made me feel both foolish and seen.
“We do couch dinner, Mama,” Aeron decreed.
“We do,” I said.
Thorne didn’t sit until I did-close enough for knees to touch, far enough for breath. He stole a spoon of soup, remembered he liked cinnamon, and almost smiled.
“Tomorrow,” he said softly, “we set our own cameras.”
“So when they decide what to show…?” I asked.
“We give them more than their angles.”
A strategy disguised as domestic advice. I nodded. Aeron stacked bread into a castle. Mister Dwagon guarded the moat.
The city lit up. Somewhere a tag slid down, somewhere else it rose. I didn’t look. Not yet.
If they were going to watch me, they’d see me. Not weakness. Not liability. Not a polished symbol.
Me.
Inside voices when possible. Inside cookies when necessary. And a hand at my back I hadn’t asked for-and wasn’t ready to let go.
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Chapter Forty-Four – First Night in the Palace
Chapter Forty-Four- First Night in the Palace
Elara’s POV
The corridors swallowed us after the chamber emptied, doors sealing behind like a jaw. Marble drank the last of the shouting and left only the damp pulse in my ears and the scrape of our steps to prove any of it had happened.
Elara is mine. Aeron is Crescent’s future.
Thorne had said it like a vow he was born with. The words still rang in my ribs-heavy as a crown I hadn’t agreed to wear and, traitorously, warm as a hand at my back guiding me through a door I’d always meant to reach.
We kept the formation that made civilians relax and enemies think twice. Maris at my shoulder, neat and lethal. Cassia prowling the flank in heels that could core an apple. Caius a moving wall. Julian orbiting like punctuation, tablet already blinking like a restless eye.
Thorne set the pace-sleeves rolled, throat bare, a tide in human shape. And Aeron… Aeron was the punctuation at the end of the sentence, floppy-limbed in Caius’s arms, curls mashed to one side, Mister Dwagon’s felt wing pressed to his cheek.
My phone still held my mother’s last message, glow dim now, the words bright anyway: Say your name before they set it on fire. I had. I could still smell the smoke.
“Twenty-three minutes,” Julian announced, syrup over steel. Thumbs flicked. “Balanced outrage, balanced memes. We’re trending under Inside Cookies. Your heir is apparently a pacifist prophet.”
Cassia snorted. “If Aeron starts a cookie religion, I want a miter made of sprinkles.”
“Noted.” Julian didn’t look up. “I’ll invoice you.”
“You could never afford me,”
“My budget is limitless for bad decisions.”
She side-eyed him, pleased. “We have that in common.”
Aeron stirred like the universe was eavesdropping. “Mama?” he breathed, sleep-syrupy. “No mo’
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yelly?”
“No more yelly,” I promised, kissing warm curls.
His gaze found Thorne and sharpened with toddler certainty. “Nside cookies now.”
Julian’s laugh kicked off the stone. “Behold, a sovereign agenda.”
“Better than half the current policy,” Caius murmured.
Thorne’s mouth almost, almost curved. His fingers traveled the small of my back-one steady stroke
that said I felt it too. I’m here.
“Since we’re codifying cookie law,” Julian continued, “I propose abolishing bedtime.”
Aeron tried to rally. “No bed-” He face-planted into Caius’s shoulder and fell asleep mid-crime.
Cassia tapped his nose. “Dangerous king.”
“Not ‘bellion,” Aeron mumbled without opening his eyes. “Dwagon say no bwoccoli in ‘mbassadah
rules.”
Julian pressed a hand to his heart. “Our foreign service trembles.”
Palace night had its own scent-less polish, more stone; less lemon oil, more old wood; a thread of rosemary like a clean green line. Torchlight threw slow amber across Thorne’s shoulders, across the broad line of his back, and a secondary heat sparked low and certain in me because my body had zero respect for politics.
Maris keyed the suite. Locks sighed. Warmth rolled out-quiet lamps, bowls of soup on a low table, bread stacked like small walls, cinnamon sugar glinting in a dish because Julian is constitutionally incapable of being late with a garnish.
We spilled in. Maris swept like a surgeon. Cassia pitched herself into a chair like she’d fought a coup in stilettos. Caius eased Aeron down with ancient gentleness. Julian had already begun dictating two statements-one real, one decoy-held equally serious by his voice,
“Note to self,” he said. “The boy’s cookie diplomacy outperforms three ambassadors.”
“Don’t give him ideas,” I warned.
“I do ‘mbassadah,” Aeron mumbled, then drooled on Mister Dwagon like an oath.
Cassia clapped once, soft. “First order of business, Little King?”
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“Mo’ cookie,” he sighed, completely asleep.
Thorne made a sound-half laugh, half pain-the kind a man makes when something brushes a bruise he’d pretended wasn’t there.
Maris dimmed the sconces to a sleepy gold. Cassia yawned like a villain at curtain call. “All right, your majesties. I can stand guard in sequins if you want intruders to die of envy.”
“Please don’t,” Julian said. “Sequins spike the glare index.”
She flicked his tie straight. “You like the glare.”
“I like you,” he said, too casual, then recovered. “In small, budget-friendly doses.”
“Put me on subscription.”
He smiled, quick and private. “Already did.”
“Out,” Maris said, dry as salt.
Cassia winked at me. “Don’t break the furniture.”
Julian bowed at the door. “If he quotes poetry, I require a fainting couch.”
The door sealed. Their laughter smudged into the hall. Quiet settled like a blanket that knew our
names.
I carried Aeron to the nursery. Tucked Mister Dwagon under his arm, pulled the quilt to his chin, smoothed a stubborn curl. Watched his chest rise and fall until the axis in mine matched it.
When I turned, Thorne leaned in the doorway, tie loose, shirt open at the throat, one shoulder braced like a question I was allowed to answer.
“Sleep?” he asked,
“Out,” I said, nodding toward the main room.
We left the nursery door cracked a hand’s span. The monitor pulsed green: all is well.
Back in the sitting room, the city threw its light against the windows like coins. A clay pot of rosemary waited on the terrace because Julian takes instructions as dares. Thorne set a glass on the
table.
“For you.”
