"No one important," the girl said. "Just someone who cleans at night. Like you."
That wasn't the full truth. Rayne could feel it. The girl moved too silently. Watched too closely.
"Are you one of them?" Rayne asked. "A noble?"
The girl laughed, but it was a quiet, bitter sound. "No. And you'd better pray you never become one."
There was silence between them. Heavy, but not cruel.
Then the girl glanced at the glowing book. "You saw it shimmer, didn't you?"
Rayne nodded. "I think it... called to me."
"You should forget that it did." The girl stepped back into the shadows. "This court destroys anything it doesn't understand. And you, moonborn or not, are surrounded by wolves."
Rayne's breath caught. "How do you know what I am?"
But the girl was already gone.
Rayne returned to the servant's hall later that night to scrub soot off iron pots.
She didn't even realize some parts of her body hurt.
The glowing book haunted her mind.
So did the strange girl.
But just as the silence settled again...
She heard voices. Two noble servants speaking around the corner. They didn't know she was there. Or they didn't care.
"The prince won't let her live forever," one hissed. "She's only alive because the moonstone hasn't reacted yet."
"The moment it does, she'll be killed," the other replied. "Orders from the High Fang himself."
Rayne's heart slammed into her ribs.
She dropped the pot.
The clang gave her away.
Silence fell. Then quick footsteps. The nobles stormed off.
Rayne stood frozen, covered in soot.
They were waiting for something to happen to her.
And then...
They would end her.
Not because she had done anything wrong.
But because she was different.
Because of what was inside her.
That night, alone in her cell, Rayne didn't cry.
She stared at the stone ceiling.
Not with fear.
But with fire.
They thought she was weak.
But she would prove them wrong.
Somehow.
Some way.
Rayne didn't sleep.
Even though her wrists hurt from the iron cuffs and her stomach growled, she kept thinking about the voices as she wandered in circles while barefoot on the chilly stone. About the glowing book. About the girl in the shadows.
They would kill her the moment that stone reacted. Whatever that meant.
And the worst part?
She didn't even know what she was.
Only that she wasn't normal. And that terrified them.
She walked to the cell bars and gripped them tight. Somewhere above, the palace loomed. Lavish. Bright. Full of people who hated her.
Rayne looked at the moon through a high crack in the ceiling. A silver sliver. Watching her.
"I don't know what I am," "But I won't die in this cage." She whispered.
Suddenly, footsteps echoed.
A guard.
Rayne stepped back just as he appeared. One she hadn't seen before. Younger. Smirking.
"You're awake," he said, voice slick like oil.
Rayne didn't answer.
He unlocked the cell, stepping inside without care.
"Prince Kael wants you cleaned up. You'll be presented at the moonrise feast."
Her pulse quickened. "Presented?"
He grabbed her chain, yanking her forward. "You'll stand before nobles, shackled like a beast. Show them what a Moonborn looks like. If they're lucky, maybe you'll even change in front of them."
Rayne's feet scraped the floor. Her body trembled-not from fear, but rage.
The nobles would watch her like an animal in a cage.
That would be her fate.
Unless she chose otherwise.
They took her to a washroom filled with freezing water. No servants helped her. She was given rough soap and ten minutes. Then guards waited with chains ready.
She stared at herself in the cracked mirror.
The bruises around her neck.
The fire still in her eyes.
She couldn't be the girl from the monastery anymore.
That girl was gone.
She wrapped herself in the dark robe they gave her. It wasn't royal. It wasn't clean. But it was armor now.
They marched her through twisting halls until golden doors opened-revealing the Feasting Hall of Araksa.
Torchlight burned against marble. Dozens of nobles filled the chamber, all of them seated at long tables piled with meat and fruit and silver goblets. Music played from somewhere she couldn't see.
Every head turned toward her.
A hush fell.
She stepped forward, her chains clinking with each step.
Prince Kael sat on a throne-like seat at the far end, flanked by guards and a robed man with silver hair-his adviser.
Kael's cold gaze locked on hers. Unreadable.
The crowd whispered.
"Is that her?"
"She looks harmless."
"She reeks of forest and fear."
Kael raised a hand. Silence returned.
"This," he said, voice sharp and clear, "is the girl found beyond our borders. The one who survived the Moon's Trial."
Someone laughed cruelly.
"She's smaller than I imagined," said a noblewoman in a jeweled collar.
"She won't last a week," another muttered.
Kael rose from his seat.
Rayne braced herself.
He walked toward her with slow, precise steps.
Stopped just inches away.
Then-he grabbed the chain around her neck and lifted her chin so she looked him in the eye.
"Tell me, girl," Kael said softly, "do you understand what you are?"
Rayne's throat tightened.
"No," she whispered.
Kael tilted his head.
"Then let me help you."
He turned to the hall and raised her chain high.
"This girl bears the Mark of the Moonborn."
Gasps echoed.
"She is dangerous. Unstable. A risk to the realm."
Rayne's hands clenched.
They didn't even know her.
And yet they had already judged her.
Kael stepped closer again, voice low so only she heard him. "If you wish to live, you'll learn your place. Bow to them. Obey me. Or you will not see the next moon."
Rayne looked up at him.
Something inside her cracked.
Not with fear...
With fire.
She turned her head to the crowd.
Then dropped to her knees.
Not in surrender.
But in defiance.
Her eyes blazed with silver.
Gasps filled the air.
One noblewoman shrieked, stumbling backward.
Kael's eyes widened for just a second.
The Moonborn mark had awakened again.
And it had chosen to shine at her command.
The guards rushed forward, blades drawn.
"Stand down!" Kael barked.
Rayne rose slowly to her feet.
She didn't speak.
She didn't need to.
She had shown them what she was.
And for the first time...
They were afraid.
Not of what she might become.
But that she might already become something they couldn't control.
That night, back in her cell, she wasn't chained.
They had removed them.
Kael had ordered it himself.
She didn't know why.
But she knew this:
Fear was power.
And now she had a little of it.
Enough to survive another day.
Maybe enough to fight back.