They came for her at dawn.
Caelina had barely stepped beyond the Crescent forest before the Queen's Guard descended—hooded, armored, silent.
But they weren't fast enough.
Elara's informants had been watching for days.
By the time Myra's hunters arrived, Caelina was gone—spirited away into the roots of the kingdom's last free hill.
But the message had been sent:
She exists.
And she was no longer silent.
"The lion may roar first, but the patient leopard chooses where to bleed him."
Myra stood barefoot in her private chamber.
A scrying bowl shimmered before her, blood swirling in the moonlight.
"She has the pendant," she said, voice trembling.
"The pendant burned with Lycaena," her advisor whispered.
Myra's eyes flared.
"Clearly, it did not."
She turned.
"Send the Black Sisters. I want Caelina brought here—dead or dying. And Elara…"
She paused.
"…I want her exiled. Not by blade. By law."
At the palace court that evening, Myra's poison was served with honey.
She gathered the nobles under the guise of reconciliation.
And then, with a silken smile, she read from the ancient Book of Oaths.
"Let no one carry arms, voice, or will in the kingdom's affairs who breaks blood allegiance to the royal moon line.
Let her who challenges divine succession from shadows be declared Heretic of the Crown
and cast beyond the capital gates until moonlight rebirths her blood or truth destroys her."
The nobles stirred.
A few whispered.
A few nodded.
And then Caelum rose—slowly, reluctantly.
"I will not enforce exile," he said. "Not without a fair council. Not while questions remain about the child's lineage—"
"She does not need the throne's mercy," Myra cut in. "She wrote her own execution with ink and bark."
By morning, Elara was declared an enemy of the court.
She was given two days to leave the capital—or be hunted like a rogue.
Caelum refused to sign the order.
So Myra did it in his name.
"If the pot refuses the fire, the stew will find another to burn it."
Elara did not weep.
She stood before her generals and read the proclamation aloud.
Then burned it.
Adisa spat. "She wants to draw you out. Strip you of your base. Corner you."
"I know," Elara said. "But this isn't exile."
She turned to her map.
"This is advance."
They relocated to the old fort ruins of Kaduwa, beyond the hills of the eastern province—land once loyal to Lycaena, now forgotten by the capital.
There, beneath walls choked by vines and stars, Elara met Caelina.
She was taller than expected. Older. Scarred.
But her eyes?
The same stormed silver Lycaena once bore.
They sat across from each other in the war tent, silence thick as fog.
"You knew I was real," Caelina finally said.
"I did," Elara said. "I just didn't expect you to walk into the fire."
"I didn't come for the crown."
"Then why?"
Caelina looked past her, toward the distant palace.
"To end the story written in someone else's blood."
Meanwhile, in the palace, Caelum stood in the Hall of Ancients alone.
The portrait of Lycaena stared down at him—calm, severe, eternal.
He whispered: "What would you have done?"
But the moon offered no answers.
Only shadows.
Back at Kaduwa, Sango stormed into Elara's chamber.
"We've lost four spies. Myra has begun purging the inner court. There's no more time."
Elara looked at Caelina.
"We don't need more time," she said.
"We need truth in person."
That night, messengers were sent out from Kaduwa to twelve noble houses.
Inside each letter:
A single sentence.
"Caelina lives. She will speak at the Eclipse Summit."
The Eclipse Summit was a rare celestial event when the twin moons overlapped—an omen of change, power, and reckoning.
It would take place in six days.
Myra would not allow it.
But she would not be able to stop it.
Because the people had seen the confession. The nobles had heard the rumors.
And the wolves?
They were running toward the howl.