Chapter 154 Inherited
Malia’s POV
The walk across the quad to the Administrative Circle was different today.
The air didn't feel like it was trying to choke me, and the stones beneath my feet didn't vibrate with the restless ghosts of the preserve. But as I walked, flanked by Aiden on my right and Rowan on my left, the silence that followed us was deafening.
Hundreds of students stood along the pathways. Some were the same ones who had filmed me in my weakest moments; others were the ones who had whispered "monster" as I limped to the infirmary. Now, they just stared. It wasn't the look of a crowd watching a car wreck anymore. It was the look of a crowd watching a mountain move.
I saw what was left of Lydia’s crew near the fountain. Without their leader—who was currently facing a mountain of disciplinary hearings and the wrath of her own father—they looked small. They scattered as we approached, their eyes downcast, as if the very sight of me might singe their retinas. They didn't sneer. They didn't whisper. They just cleared the way.
"They're afraid," Aiden murmured, his hand tightening around mine.
"Good," Rowan added, his voice like velvet-wrapped steel. "Let them be. Fear is the first step toward respect for people who don't know how to give it freely."
We reached the inner sanctum of the school—the Board’s Circle. Usually, this was where students were brought to be broken. But as we stepped into the plush, wood-paneled office of the Principal, the atmosphere was thick with a strange, frantic deference.
Principal McLunar stood by the window, his back to us. Beside him stood three men in charcoal suits—legal representatives from the High Council—and a woman I didn't recognize, dressed in a sharp, obsidian-colored blazer. On the mahogany desk sat a heavy, silver-bound chest and a stack of legal documents that looked old enough to be parchment.
"Miss Reed ," McLunar said, turning around. He looked older. The stress of the Vesper scandal had carved deep lines into his face. He didn't tell me to sit. He waited until I did, and then he remained standing. "Or should I say... Miss Mooncrest."
The name still felt like a weight, but I didn't flinch. "Malia is fine."
The woman in the obsidian blazer stepped forward. "My name is Elena Vance, senior executor for the Mooncrest Trust. For eighteen years, I have managed an estate that officially did not exist. Until now."
She spread her hands over the documents on the desk. "With the removal of the dampening fields and the confirmation of your bloodline’s awakening, the seal on your mother’s will has been broken. Malia, your mother, Seraphina Mooncrest, didn't just leave you a legacy of power. She left you an empire."
I felt the air leave my lungs. Aiden moved closer, his shoulder pressing against mine, his warmth the only thing keeping me grounded.
"An empire?" my voice was barely a whisper.
"The Mooncrest assets were hidden in plain sight," Elena continued, her eyes sharp and professional. "She knew that if the High Council found them while you were a child, they would siphon them dry. So, she tied them to your pulse. To your awakening."
She began to list them, and with every word, the world I thought I knew shifted.
"The Mooncrest Estate in the Northern Valleys—over fifty thousand acres of ancestral land. The Mooncrest Citadel. Six separate commercial holdings in the city. A trust fund that has been accumulating interest for two decades, currently valued in the hundreds of millions."
I stared at her, my mind spinning. I thought of my life before this. The shifts I pulled at the diner. The way I had to count every penny just to afford the bus ticket to this school. The way I had clung to my scholarship like it was a life raft because I thought I had nothing else.
"And then," Elena said, her gaze shifting to McLunar , "there is this."
She tapped a specific document. It bore the seal of the college.
"Mooncrest College was built on Mooncrest land," McLunar admitted, his voice tight. "When the bloodline was thought to be extinct, the Moonfall family and the High Council assumed guardianship of the grounds. But the deed was never transferred. It was a lease. A lease that expired the moment a True Heir reached the age of twenty-one or... awakened their power."
Rowan let out a low, sharp whistle. "You’re say she owns the school?"
"I’m saying," Elena looked directly at me, "that as of thirty minutes ago, Malia Mooncrest is the sole proprietor of the land, the buildings, and the charter of this institution. The Board of Regents now reports to you. The faculty’s contracts are subject to your approval. Even the scholarship fund you were so worried about... it’s your money, Malia. It always was."
I looked at the silver-bound chest. My mother had done this. She had lived in hiding, lived in fear, but she had spent her final years building a fortress of wealth and legality to ensure that if I ever survived, I wouldn't just be a survivor. I would be a Queen.
I was no longer the scholarship girl who was lucky to be here.
I was the owner of the ground they stood on.
I looked at McLunar . The man who had sat by while Vesper experimented on students. The man who had signed my expulsion letter only days ago.
"So," I said, my voice gaining a strength that made the silver in my veins hum. "That expulsion letter you gave me... I assume that's void?"
McLunar cleared his throat, looking incredibly uncomfortable. "It has been shredded, Miss Mooncrest. Along with the records of your disciplinary probation. We are... at your disposal."
I felt a surge of cold, sharp satisfaction. I looked at Aiden. He was grinning—a fierce, proud Alpha grin. He wasn't threatened by it. He looked like he wanted to watch me burn the world down and rebuild it in my image.
"What do you want to do, Malia?" Rowan asked, his eyes dancing with a calculated glee. "You have the power to fire half the staff by dinner. You could shut the gates. You could turn this place into a private residence if you wanted."
I looked out the window at the quad. I saw the students. I saw the legacy of pain and the new hope of the rescued students being carried to the infirmary.
I thought of the twelve students Vesper had hidden. I thought of how they had been used as 'batteries' on land that belonged to my family.
"I’m not shutting it down," I said, standing up. I felt taller. I felt like the silver light was no longer a fire, but a suit of armor. "But things are going to change. This school was built to protect our kind, not to harvest us. If I own the charter, then the first thing I’m doing is rewriting the laws of this campus."
I looked at Elena. "I want a full audit of every faculty member. I want Vesper’s research destroyed—not archived, Moonfall destroyedMoonfall . And I want the Mooncrest Estate opened. If there are students who have nowhere to go after graduation, they have a place on my land."
Elena bowed her head slightly. "As you wish, Ma'am."
"Ma'am," I repeated to myself. The word felt strange.
I turned back to McLunar . "You said you were resigning. I accept your resignation. But you won't be leaving today. You will stay until the graduation ceremony and you will publicly apologize to every student whose safety was compromised under your watch. Including me."
McLunar nodded slowly. "I understand."
We walked out of the office, but we didn't go back to the suite. I walked to the balcony that overlooked the courtyard.
The students were still there. They saw us come out. They saw the way the legal executors were following two paces behind me. They saw the way the Moonfall brothers—the most powerful Alphas in the school—stood behind me like guards.
I looked down at them. I saw some of Lydia’s friends, their faces pale. They knew the rumors by now. They knew the power had shifted.
I didn't say anything. I didn't have to. The silver radiance was visible even in the midday sun. I wasn't the girl who had collapsed in the dirt. I was the girl who owned the dirt.
Aiden stepped up beside me, placing his hand on the small of my back. "How does it feel?"
"Heavy," I admitted. "But for the first time... it feels right. Like I'm finally wearing the right size shoes."
"You were born for this, Malia," he whispered. "The world just took a while to realize it."
I looked at the silver chest Elena had handed me. Inside were my mother’s journals, her jewelry, and the keys to an empire I hadn't asked for but was damn sure going to use.
My mother had died to give me this chance. She had been a ghost, a shadow, a whisper in the wind so that I could be a thunderstorm.
I looked out over the Mooncrest grounds and for the first time, I didn't see a prison. I saw a kingdom.
The scholarship girl was dead, the Mooncrest Heir had arrived.
And I was just getting started.