Chapter 23 Lunaria
It was the second day of the second trial, and the tension still clung to the university like a living thing. It seeped into the halls, the classrooms, even the air itself. Nothing felt the same anymore. Too much had changed in such a short span of time. Alliances fractured, reputations shattered, and truths dragged into the light where they could no longer hide.
Selene noticed it in the way some students now walked with their shoulders bowed, eyes downcast, confidence broken beyond repair. She noticed it too in the way others moved through the grounds with renewed arrogance, voices louder, laughter sharper, as if victory had given them permission to become cruel. The trials had not only tested strength or loyalty but they had revealed character. And not everyone liked what had been uncovered.
Unlike the others, Selene did not go to the field to watch the second trial unfold. The cheers, the tension, the anticipation, it all felt distant to her now. Instead, her thoughts kept circling back to the book.
Ever since she had found it, something about her perception felt… off. Not wrong exactly, but altered. As though a veil had been lifted without her realizing it. When people spoke, she sensed the intention behind their words before they finished speaking. When they acted, it felt as though she already knew the outcome. It unsettled her, how familiar everyone suddenly felt, as if she had known them far longer than she should have.
So she turned away from the noise and crossed the university grounds in the opposite direction.
She headed toward a place students only frequented during hunt season. A secluded stretch of land far from the main field. During the hunts, it buzzed with activity, strategy, and excitement. But today, with everyone gathered for the trial, it stood abandoned and silent, reclaimed by nature.
At the center of it all stood the tree.
Selene slowed as she approached, her steps unconsciously softening. The tree was ancient. Older than the university, older than most recorded history, if the whispers were true. Its trunk was impossibly wide, roots twisting and spreading across the ground like the veins of the earth itself. They disappeared into the soil and reemerged meters away, forming natural arches and pathways as if inviting those brave enough to step closer.
Its branches stretched outward for what felt like kilometers, forming a vast canopy that dominated the sky. From its limbs hung countless strands of luminous leaves, each one shimmering in soft gold and pale blue, growing brighter beneath the moon’s watchful light. They flickered gently, like starlight caught mid-fall, bathing the clearing in an otherworldly glow. Even in daylight the tree carried a quiet radiance, but under the moon it awakened fully alive, radiant, eternal and that was why it was called Lunaria.
Above, faint trails of light drifted downward like falling code or rain made of stars, dissolving just before they touched the ground. The sight was hypnotic. Selene tilted her head back, breath catching in her chest as awe washed over her. The air around the tree felt different, it was thicker. Every instinct in her told her this place was sacred… and comforting.
The bark of the tree was textured and dark, etched with patterns that looked less like natural growth and more like symbols—old ones, worn by time. As Selene stepped closer, she felt a strange pull in her chest, as though the tree itself was aware of her presence. Watching her.
She placed her hand against the trunk. It was warm.
Not with heat, but with life. Like a heartbeat buried deep within the wood. A strange calm washed over her, the unease she had carried for days finally loosening its grip. For the first time since finding the book, her thoughts felt clear.
Lunaria knew things.
Things older than the university. Older than the trials. Older, perhaps, than the truths now tearing people apart. Selene felt seen and not judged, not threatened, but recognized. As if the tree knew her path long before she had taken her first step.
She withdrew her hand slowly, pulse quickening.
The book. The trials. The way the moon seemed to linger just a little longer above the university.
None of it was coincidence.
And standing beneath Lunaria’s moonlit glow, Selene realized something that sent a quiet shiver through her: perhaps the real trial had never been on the field at all.
Selene lowered herself at the base of Lunaria, resting against one of the massive roots that curved naturally as if it had been shaped for this very purpose. The moment her back touched the bark, a wave of comfort washed over her, it was slow, warm, and unmistakably gentle. It startled her how easily her body relaxed, how her shoulders loosened and her breath evened out without conscious effort.
It felt like being held.
Not physically, but in the way a mother’s presence wrapped around a child. Lunaria’s glow softened, the silver-blue light dimming just enough to become soothing rather than overwhelming. The moonlight filtered through the branches above, pooling around Selene like a quiet blessing.
For the first time in days, she did not feel watched. She felt safe.
Selene closed her eyes briefly, resting her palm against the root beside her. Beneath her touch, she sensed that same steady pulse again. It was as if the tree itself approved of her being here. Only then did she take the book from her bag.
Its cover caught the moonlight instantly, the worn surface reflecting a faint glow that mirrored Lunaria’s leaves. Selene frowned. She was certain the book had never reacted like that before. Or perhaps she simply hadn’t noticed.
She opened it slowly. The pages no longer felt brittle or cold. Instead, they were warm beneath her fingers, as if the book had been waiting—for this place, for this moment. The faint scent of old parchment filled the air.
Her eyes drifted to the heading.
“Chapter Two: What the Blood Remembers”
Selene frowned slightly.
She adjusted her position against Lunaria’s root and began to read.
“Blood does not forget what time erases. It carries fragments—moments, instincts, echoes of choices made long before the bearer ever draws breath. Not all bloodlines awaken to this memory. Most pass through generations untouched, unaware of what sleeps beneath their skin. But when a line is marked, it remembers. Even when the mind refuses to.”
Selene paused. Her chest tightened, slow and uncomfortable. Her thoughts drifted back to the past few days. To how she had known things before they happened. She swallowed and continued reading.
“Those born into a remembering bloodline often mistake the signs for coincidence. A feeling of déjà vu. A pull toward moments they cannot explain. Dreams that linger too long after waking. They will think themselves perceptive, intuitive, lucky—or cursed. They are none of those things. They are remembering.”
Selene let out a slow breath. That… felt too close. Her dreams had always been strange. Too vivid. Too detailed. Even before the Rite. Even before everything fell apart. She had dismissed them as stress, imagination, overthinking.
But what if they weren’t? She glanced down at her wrist again, fingers brushing the faint outline beneath her skin. The mark had never shouted at her. Never demanded anything. It had just been there. Just like the chapter said.
Her gaze dropped back to the page.
“The remembering does not mean power. It does not grant strength, status, or protection. In most cases, it brings only awareness. And awareness is often the heaviest burden of all.”
Selene scoffed quietly.
“That figures,” she muttered.
Awareness. Knowing. Seeing things others didn’t want to see.
She thought of the second trial. Of how fast everything had unraveled once the questions started. How one truth was enough to destroy someone completely. How silence didn’t save anyone.
Her grip on the book tightened slightly.
She flipped the page.
“When imbalance grows too great, memory alone is no longer enough. At that point, the bloodline is called to correct what was once allowed. Not through strength, but through choice. Not through domination, but through action.”
Selene’s brows knit together.
Correction.
That word again.
She leaned her head back against the tree, staring up through Lunaria’s glowing leaves.
“So I’m supposed to fix it?” she whispered. “That’s it?”
The tree didn’t answer. It only pulsed steadily beneath her.
She looked back at the book, frustration creeping in now.
If this was about bloodlines… then why hers?
Her family wasn’t special.
They weren’t royals. They weren’t founders. They weren’t whispered about in legends or carved into history. They were loyal, quite, and ordinary.
Her parents—or rather, her parent and her aunt, since she never knew her mother—had only ever been pack members. Nothing more. No crowns. No ancient titles. No dramatic pasts.
So why did her blood remember? She scanned the page again, searching for something—anything—that explained it. But there was nothing.
No names. No lineages. No answers.
Just another line, written smaller than the rest.
“Remembering does not require greatness. It requires proximity.”
Selene froze.
Proximity?
To what?
She reread the line three times, her heart beating a little faster each time.
Proximity to imbalance?
To broken bonds?
To lies?
Her thoughts snapped to Kai. To Christopher. To the way everything had looked fine on the surface while rotting underneath. To how close she had been to it all. Living in it. Trusting it.
Maybe her bloodline wasn’t special because it ruled.
Maybe it was special because it endured.
Because it stayed close enough to witness the damage when others looked away.
Selene’s throat tightened.
“So… I’m just unlucky?” she whispered. “Wrong place. Wrong blood.”
She flipped to the bottom of the page and noticed something she hadn’t seen before.
A faint note, written in the margin. The ink was lighter, almost faded, as if added later—or erased and rewritten.
“If you are reading this and asking why you, then you are not meant to have the answer yet.”
Selene stared at the words.
Not meant to have the answer yet.
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
“That’s not comforting,” she muttered.
She closed the book slowly, resting her palm against the cover. The faint hum beneath her touch returned, steady and calm.
Lunaria’s light shifted, brushing across the book, across her hands, across the mark beneath her skin.
Selene leaned back, eyes closing for just a moment.
She wasn’t chosen because she was powerful.
She wasn’t chosen because she was royal.
She was chosen because she was there.
Because her blood remembered what others ignored.
Because when the balance finally broke, she was close enough to feel it and strong enough to survive it.
Her eyes opened again, sharper now.
“Fine,” she whispered softly. “Then I’ll remember too.”