Chapter 22 THE GIRL FROM THE RUINS
They woke her before dawn.
Not Roman. Not Kael. Not Seris.
A guard—young, nervous, smelling of steel and uncertainty.
He knocked once, then again, harder. “Luna,” he called, voice cracking. “You’re needed in the lower courtyard.”
Aria sat up, sleep falling away like shattered glass. Her veins didn’t glow, but her body remembered how often waking meant danger now.
“What time is it?” she asked, already swinging her legs out of bed.
“Barely light,” the guard replied through the door. “I—uh—we found someone at the southern boundary. She… asked for you. By name.”
Her hand froze halfway to her boots.
Nobody from the South should know her name.
Not like that.
Unless he’d told them.
The Caller.
Aria forced her fingers to move, shoving her feet into her boots, yanking on a dark tunic. She didn’t bother with a cloak. The chill might help her stay sharp.
She opened the door.
The guard jumped. “Luna.”
“Walk,” she said.
They moved quickly through half-lit corridors, past servants yawning into their hands, warriors returning from night patrols, eyes shadowed. A few straightened at the sight of her. Some looked away. None spoke.
The sky over the courtyard was a thin, colorless grey when they stepped out. The torches were still burning, their light dull against the slow bloom of morning.
Kael waited near the inner gate, arms folded, expression tight.
Aria’s pace quickened. “Who is she?”
“Unknown,” Kael said. “Human. No obvious shift scent. Clothes southern. Not branded.” His jaw clenched. “She crossed the wards like they didn’t exist. Sat down by the south watchtower and asked very politely for ‘Aria Nightwolf.’”
The way he said her name made it sound like a challenge.
“Is she alone?” Aria asked.
“Yes,” Kael said. “That’s the problem.”
They passed through the smaller service arch that led to the lower gate yard, where deliveries came and prisoners were dragged when subtlety wasn’t needed. A circle of guards stood around someone sitting calmly on a crate.
She was smaller than Aria.
Dark hair in a ragged braid. Hands tied in front of her with plain rope she didn’t appear particularly concerned about. Her clothes were worn but well-made, dyed in muted southern shades—rust red and deep green. Mud crusted the hem of her trousers. No weapons.
And her eyes—
Aria stopped.
Her eyes were a pale, ghostly grey. Not like Roman’s storm. Not like Aria’s silver.
Empty sky before a storm.
The girl looked up as if she’d heard more than footsteps.
“There you are,” she said, as if greeting an old friend who was merely late. “You took longer to arrive than last time.”
Aria’s wolf went on high alert.
Last time.
She took a step forward. “You know me?”
The girl smiled.
It wasn’t friendly.
It was sad.
And too old for her face.
“We were children,” she said. “You don’t remember me. But I remember you.”
A guard shifted. Kael stepped closer, hand on his sword. “Name.”
The girl’s gaze flicked to him briefly, then back to Aria. “My name now, or then?”
“Now,” Kael snapped.
“Liora,” she said. “Which means ‘light.’ I’ve always thought that was a bit cruel.”
“Then?” Aria asked.
The girl’s pale eyes studied her a moment. “You used to call me Lio. When you weren’t busy hiding behind your mother’s skirts.”
Breath punched out of Aria’s lungs.
Her mother’s voice flooded her memory.
Run, little moon.
A courtyard she hadn’t known was real until recently. A flash of a child’s laugh. Another girl’s hand in hers, tugging her toward something bright.
“Lio,” Aria repeated, the name tasting like dust and smoke on her tongue.
Kael’s shoulders stiffened. “You expect us to believe—”
“She knew Elaria’s lullaby,” Liora cut in, voice suddenly sharper. “The one she only sang when the moon was too bright and the prophecy kept her awake.”
Liora began to hum.
Just a few notes.
Aria’s knees nearly gave out.
She’d heard that melody in her dreams for years. A tune with no words that settled in the bones, made of comfort and sorrow and something like apology.
She forced herself to stay upright.
“How do you know that?” Aria whispered.
Liora’s smile twisted. “Because I slept in the same room you did, little moon. Before the fires. Before they decided what you were worth.”
Every guard in the yard went tense.
Kael looked ready to drag the girl to the cells on principle.
Aria raised a hand slightly.
“Don’t touch her,” she said.
Liora’s brows lifted. “You learned to command. Good.”
Aria ignored the flicker of pride that wasn’t hers.
“How did you get here?” she asked.
“I walked,” Liora said lightly. “South to North, ruin to ruin. I followed the whispers. The ones that said the moon had found you again.” Her eyes sharpened. “I also followed the beasts.”
Aria’s skin crawled. “The Caller’s beasts.”
Liora nodded. “If you walk behind his monsters long enough, you learn where they’re tested. Where they’re sent. Where they listen.”
Kael stepped in. “Why come here? Why not run the other way?”
Liora’s gaze didn’t leave Aria’s face.
“Because I thought she might need someone who remembers her from before she was a prophecy,” she said.
The words landed with more force than shouting would have.
Aria swallowed.
“Untie her,” she said.
Kael’s head snapped to her. “Aria—”
“You said she walked through our wards without flinching,” Aria said. “Those wards answer to the King and his bloodline. If she were here as a weapon, we’d already be dead or listening to someone else’s voice out of her mouth.”
Liora’s lips twitched. “She’s sharper now.”
Kael didn’t look convinced.
“She could still be a spy,” he said.
“Of course I’m a spy,” Liora said, sounding almost offended he’d think otherwise. “Anything that survives the Caller’s lands learns to listen where it shouldn’t.”
That didn’t help.
Kael’s jaw flexed. “You admit it.”
“I admit I have information,” Liora said. “What you decide to call me is your business.”
Aria stepped closer until she was within arm’s reach.
Liora didn’t flinch.
Neither did Aria.
Up close, she could see the details: the faint scar across Liora’s left eyebrow, a rough patch of skin on her neck like an old burn, the calluses on her fingertips.
“Who gave you that?” Aria asked, nodding toward the burn mark.
Liora’s jaw tightened. “Fire,” she said. “And the man who thinks he owns yours.”
Anger stirred low in Aria’s chest.
“Untie her,” Aria repeated, voice flat.
Kael stared at her for a heartbeat—
Then cut through the rope with a quick flick of his knife.
Liora rubbed her wrists, wincing.
“Thank you,” she told Aria, not Kael.
“That doesn’t mean we trust you,” Kael warned.
“I would be disappointed if you did,” Liora said. She lifted her chin. “I want to see the King.”
“You don’t get to—” Kael began.
Aria spoke over him. “You will.”
Liora’s eyes warmed for a fraction of a second.
“Good,” she murmured. “Because he needs to hear what your mother promised him. And what she broke.”
The bottom dropped out of Aria’s world.
“My mother never promised him anything,” Roman’s voice said from behind them.
They all turned.
Roman stood in the archway, cloak thrown over one shoulder, hair damp, face carved from stone. His eyes skimmed the scene—the cut rope, Aria too close, Liora standing free—and narrowed briefly.
“How long have you been listening?” Liora asked.
“Long enough,” Roman said. “To know you haven’t been thrown out yet. That’s either a miracle or a bad decision.”
“Or both,” Aria muttered.
His gaze flicked to her, softening for a heartbeat.
Then he walked toward Liora.
She watched him come with a strange mix of defiance and… sorrow.
“You look like him,” she said quietly.
Roman’s jaw tightened. “Who?”
“Your father,” Liora said. “In the eyes. In the way you hold your shoulders when you’re trying not to let anyone see you’re already tired.”
Kael bristled. “Watch your—”
Roman lifted a hand.
“Let her speak,” he said.
He stopped a few paces away from Liora, not looming, not threatening.
But nothing in his body said he’d hesitate to break her in half if she deserved it.
“You say you knew Elaria,” Roman said. “You say you knew Aria. Prove it.”
Liora tilted her head, studying him.
“You were six,” she said. “The first time you saw her use the moonfire. You cried. Not because you were afraid, but because it hurt you to watch her burn herself to protect people who would later burn her.”
Roman’s face went very still.
Liora’s gaze softened.
“She picked you up afterward,” she continued. “Held you on the steps of the ruined east tower and told you you were not allowed to hate the people she saved. Not even when they disappointed you.”
A muscle ticked in Roman’s cheek.
“She told you,” Liora said slowly, “that one day, the moon would ask for something more precious than her.”
Her eyes slid to Aria.
“And she told you to refuse.”
Silence.
Aria’s lungs forgot how to function.
“Is that true?” she asked Roman quietly.
He didn’t look at her.
He looked at Liora.
“Yes,” he said at last.
The word scraped out of him like something pulled from a wound.
“You were there,” Roman said, voice low. “In the east tower.”
Liora nodded once.
“I was everywhere she tried to hide you as children,” she said. “I was the one who shoved you both into cellars and behind curtains and under tables when the priests came with their questions. I poured wine on your father’s maps so he’d stop planning wars long enough to remember he had a family.”
She swallowed.
“I was a servant,” she added. “Nothing more. Nothing less. But I was there the night everything burned.”
Aria’s chest ached.
“You survived,” she whispered.
“Barely,” Liora said. “Not because of her. Because of him.”
“The Caller,” Roman said.
“The man who watched her die,” Liora corrected. “The one who told me to run with you in my arms.”
Roman stiffened. “He never had his hands on me.”
“No,” Liora agreed. “He had his hands on her. She shoved you away before he could reach you. I dragged you out. You fought me the whole way, screaming for your mother.”
Roman’s throat worked.
Aria had never seen him look so—
Young.
Liora exhaled.
“He kept me,” she said. “Because I reminded him of something he’d broken. He thought maybe I could be useful later. He told me if I ever found you again, I should deliver a message.”
Aria’s veins flared faintly.
“What message?” she asked.
Liora’s pale eyes fixed on her.
“That you are his second chance,” she said. “That he failed to keep your mother. That he will not fail with you.”
The ground seemed to tilt.
Roman’s power crackled under his skin, faint lightning in his eyes.
“If you’re here to try to deliver me to him,” Aria said slowly, “you’ve chosen a very stupid castle to walk into.”
Liora actually smiled. “I’m not here for him,” she said. “I’m here for you.”
She hesitated.
Then, as if making a decision she’d put off too long, she dropped to one knee.
Not like the wolves had.
Not like a subject.
Like someone asking for forgiveness.
“I owe you a debt,” she said. “And a truth I should’ve told you a long time ago.”
Aria’s throat tightened. “What truth?”
Liora raised her head.
“Your mother didn’t just hide you from the Caller,” she said. “She hid you from him.”
Both Aria and Roman spoke at once.
“Who?”
Liora’s gaze shifted between them.
“The man who was supposed to protect you both,” she said quietly. “The one who chose the crown instead.”
She looked straight at Roman.
“Your father.”
The silence that followed was worse than shouting.
Worse than magic.
Worse than thunder.
Roman didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’t breathe.
Aria stared at Liora, hearing her own pulse roar in her ears.
“What do you mean?” she whispered.
Liora’s fingers curled against her knee.
“Elaria begged him not to present you to the priests,” she said. “She knew what the prophecy would do once it had two names. She asked him to protect you both. To let you be children.”
Her voice shook, just once.
“He said the North needed its future more than it needed her mercy.”
A dull, sick feeling settled in Aria’s stomach.
Roman’s jaw clenched so hard Aria thought his teeth might crack.
“You’re lying,” he said softly.
Liora didn’t flinch.
“I wish I were,” she said.
“You expect me to believe my father offered his own mate and child to a prophecy?” Roman asked.
“No,” Liora said. “He offered his mate. Your mother refused to offer you. So she made sure they thought you were too weak to matter.”
She looked at Aria.
“And she made sure they thought you didn’t exist.”
The courtyard felt too small.
The air felt too thin.
Roman’s storm flickered.
Aria’s moonfire pulsed.
Liora knelt in the middle of it all—a girl from the ruins carrying truths like shards of broken glass.
Aria forced herself to speak.
“Why now?” she asked. “Why tell us this now?”
Liora looked up.
“Because the Caller is moving,” she said. “Because the moon is watching. Because the North just knelt to you and he felt it.”
Her pale eyes darkened.
“And because the next time he reaches for you, he won’t use beasts or broken wolves.”
She hesitated.
“He’ll use your past.”
Roman’s eyes flicked to Aria.
The bond between them thrummed—fear, anger, something fierce and protective blazing to life.
Aria lifted her chin.
“Then we learn it,” she said. “Before he does.”
Liora nodded once, slowly.
“He’s counting on what you don’t remember,” she said. “Let’s disappoint him.”