The Adjudicator's Luna (The Watch Her Leave Series)

Chapter One The Offcuts

Chapter　One:　The　Offcuts

The title of Luna was never meant for me.

My sister was supposed to stand at the Alpha's side. That was the plan, right up until the eve of the ceremony, when Gideon was ambushed on patrol and carried back half-dead.

The healers gave him a thirty percent chance of waking up.

So they sent me instead. The spare. The bastard daughter.

The Moon Goddess, in her infinite mercy, let him live.

And for a while, I believed I had finally been given the life I had always wanted.

A family.

A future.

Until the first anniversary banquet of our marking ceremony.

That was when I saw the shadowstone bracelet on my sister’s wrist.

I knew that stone.

Because my earrings were made from the exact same piece.

Gideon had taken the heart of the stone and shaped it into a bracelet for her. What was left, the offcuts, the scraps, he'd had made into earrings for me.

That was the whole story, really.

Borrowed things find their way back eventually.

***

"You've been spacing out for a while."

Lilian tilts her head toward me, her voice light, curious. Then her gaze follows mine, drops to her own wrist, and something soft moves across her face.

She turns the bracelet slowly.

The shadowstone catches the chandelier light and throws it back in fragments of deep violet, grey-silver, and a blue so dark it's almost black. Each piece fitted perfectly to the next. No rough edges. No gaps.

"You're looking at this, aren't you?" She glances up, smiling. "Thank you. Both of you. Shadowstone this quality is almost impossible to find now. I really love it."

I don't answer right away.

Six months ago, Gideon came back from border patrol with blood on his shoulder and dried mud along his jaw.

I sat on the edge of the bed and worked antiseptic into the cut. When I finished he pushed a small box across the mattress without looking at me.

From patrol. Thought it suited you.

I opened it. Two shadowstone studs, each one small enough to sit flush against the ear. I put them in that same night and never took them out.

My fingers find my earlobe now, without deciding to. The stones are cool. Smaller than I remembered, or maybe I'm only noticing the size for the first time.

He used the best pieces for the bracelet. What was left over, he set into earrings and brought home to me.

I've worn them for six months. I wonder what goes through his head when he looks at them — when he looks at me wearing them — and whether anything goes through his head at all.

These two little stones are a joke with no punchline.

I pull my fingers back. Lift my chin. The smile I give Lilian is the kind I've had years to perfect: warm enough to read as genuine, brief enough to ask nothing in return.

"I'm glad you like it."

Gideon's voice cuts through from behind us both.

"What are you two hiding back here for?"

He doesn't look at me. He walks straight to Lilian and lifts the wine glass from her hand.

The motion is so practiced it doesn't even read as taking. Just a hand reaching out, a glass changing owners, all of it done before Lilian has time to tighten her grip.

"Your stomach." He glances at the ice floating in what's left of the red wine. "You can't drink it that cold."

Lilian doesn't argue. She doesn't look annoyed. She nods once, easy, like this is just the shape of an evening.

"I know."

Gideon turns, picks up a second glass from the side table. It is already waiting there, already the right temperature. He passes it to her.

"Lemon tea. I had them set out the small pastries near your seat, too. You haven't eaten since this afternoon."

I watch Lilian carry the tea toward the far end of the hall.

The seat waiting for her there is the softest one in the room. I can see even from here the arrangement of food beside it. The exact things she prefers. Small portions, nothing too rich.

Flowers on the table: pale yellow ones she mentioned liking once, at a dinner two months ago.

My own stomach has been empty since morning.

I keep watching the two of them cross the room. Gideon's hand settles briefly at the small of Lilian's back, guiding her around a cluster of guests.

I feel something that is not jealousy and not rage.

It's something quieter. The exhaustion of finally setting down a weight you carried for so long you forgot it was there.

When Lilian wasn't here, I could tell myself stories. He's busy. He doesn't notice. He's like this with everyone. The stories were thin, but thin things can hold if nobody presses on them.

She's standing right there now. The details are right there. I can't pretend I didn't see—

Fine. Then leave early. That was always the arrangement. That was the whole point.

***

I ignore the feeling in my stomach and hold myself straight. When Gideon reaches me I'm already looking at him.

"Your uncle," I say. "Are you making the final move?"

He shifts. The Alpha composure settles back into place the way a mask settles, familiar and automatic.

"Close. His cash flow gets cut off next week. Without money, he won't last."

I nod.

"Then it's time to discuss the rest of our agreement." I keep my voice the same temperature it's been all evening — even, unhurried. "After it's done, I want my mother out. I'll take her somewhere quiet. The coast."

Gideon goes still.

Not the stillness of a man thinking. The stillness of a man who heard something he doesn't like and is deciding how to arrange his face before he responds.

His hand moves fast, fingers closing around my wrist, grip firm.

"That needs more planning. Your father won't release her easily."

He doesn't wait for me to answer.

"The ceremony's starting."

The music rises from somewhere near the altar. Processional, slow, designed to sound ancient.

Gideon releases my wrist and takes my hand instead, fingers lacing through mine, and walks me forward like the conversation never happened. The guests turn. The applause begins before we reach the center of the room.

I let him lead.

A year ago, the ceremony happened without him. He was unconscious in a hospital bed, and the elders didn't wait. The true marking happened ten months ago, not one year ago. No altar, no guests, no music.

Two months after he woke, when I was still healing from the second wave of assassins. The ones who came for him while he was still in the hospital bed. The ones I stepped in front of.

The wound on my shoulder blade hadn't closed yet. The room smelled like antiseptic and old blood.

He sat on the edge of the bed. Looked at the bandaging along my shoulder for a long time without speaking.

Then he bent forward and pressed his mouth to the skin just beside the wound. The gesture was gentle, almost careful. Then he said, very quietly:

I don't want to only be your ally. Will you?

No ceremony. No witnesses. Just his voice kept low, and the question asked twice, like he needed to be sure of the answer.

I remember how I answered. Soft. No hesitation.

We stop.

At the altar, he cups my face and kisses me. I lift my arms around his neck and kiss him back. Around us the applause sharpens, and the light from a dozen arranged candles turns the whole room gold.

My face holds the Luna's smile. Every line of it is correct.

What I think, standing in all that warm gold light with his mouth on mine, is: this anniversary is so fucking messed up.