LUNA #2
“It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. Our people need you, and if you seriously think dying is the way to serve them, you’re not the leader I thought you were.”
My eyes narrow. “I’ve proven myself unworthy. Don’t you see that? How can I ever ask for respect? For trust?”
Aiden scoffs, his head falling back with exhaustion. “Great leaders don’t ask for it, Luna… They just accept it when it’s given.”
I just stare at him.
Luna?
He’s never called me Luna.
“You saved my life once.” Aiden’s legs relax down against the earth. My eyes drift to his mangled ear, the top half missing.
I remember vividly the smell of his blood as it gushed from the broken capillaries as I stood over him with the pair of hedge clippers. Aiden was so strong and flailed so much that two Keepers had to hold him down.
I was just a teenager at the time, not even a Keeper, but still, the punishment was my idea. He was a cultivator who worked in the orchards with his mate. She became pregnant, and unfortunately, the baby was a boy. Aiden went to beg Father for permission to die in the forest with their child.
He was caught eavesdropping on Father’s conversation with someone on the outside. Though he claimed he heard nothing, Father ordered his execution.
I was softer at the time. The sight of agony was a discomfort that I saw in my dreams, and the news of births filled me with anxiety. I felt like I couldn’t breathe until I knew it was a girl.
I pitied Aiden, and I knew the power I had to influence my father.
I suggested an alternative punishment—the loss of an ear. Eventually, Father relented and claimed it was a growth opportunity for his favorite daughter.
Aiden spent three summer days in the forest until the infant finally passed. We never spoke of it again, of any of it.
Until now.
“But you still don’t know what you saved me from,” Aiden continues. “I never told you what I overheard the Chief Elder say.”
An argument erupts in my body—ears perking while my chest tightens, hips hinging closer while my body tenses for a blow. As if there’s anything Aiden could say that would surprise me. There shouldn’t be. Yet, I brace myself anyway. “What are you talking about?”
“He was talking in his office when I went to find him… I was desperate but knew not to interrupt, so I put my ear up to the door just to try and judge if the conversation was delicate or if I could knock.
“It was only his voice, so I figured he was on the phone. I heard him mention a price and delivery date.”
“Okay.” I raise my shoulders. “He was buying something for the Shadow Sanctum. Sometimes, that’s necessary, Aiden. We don’t make metal here or—”
“He was selling something,” Aiden interrupts, his tone chilling. “I didn’t know what until I heard him give the ‘dimensions of the package.’ 7 lbs 11 oz. 20.5 inches.”
My head grows heavy before Aiden even says it, needles prickling ear to ear as blood drains.
“He was selling a baby, Luna. He was selling my baby.”
My eyes close as the world tilts. It barely helps. “That doesn’t make sense. You went to the forest to—”
“I went to deliver my own child to the people your father sold him to,” Aiden deadpans. I force myself to look at him. As cold as his voice is, his eyes reflect years’ worth of suffering. “It took three days. And I’ve been making those deliveries ever since.”
“What?” I inch backward.
“It’s the deal I made with your father. Guenevere’s life in exchange for my silence and servitude.”
Guenevere’s life.
He would’ve killed Aiden’s wife, for the crime of…
I shake my head. But I don’t know if I’m rejecting the claim or the horrific notions it entails. A silly, silly thought pops into my mind, so shameful I wince.
How could he do this to me?
“The only reason he allows me to be so close is because he thinks I’m keeping an eye on you.
I’m required to tell him everything you say or do.
He’s been watching you your entire life, waiting for the day you’re brave enough to rise against him…
If you kill yourself, that day will never come, and he’ll go on selling our babies and raping our women for the rest of his miserably long life. ”
“Why wouldn’t you tell anyone?” Bile lurches up my throat. “Why wouldn’t you tell me? I…” My mouth hangs open while I try not to choke on my words.
It’s not just my father.
It’s me.
I’ve been selling babies. I… I’ve been selling people’s children.
How could I not have known?
“I have,” he says, his voice more gentle. “Many of the Cultivators. Most of the Nurturers. A few of the Keepers… Only people who were ready to learn.”
Only people who were ready to learn.
Not me.
“Fear doesn’t make people amenable, Luna. I know that’s what Aurelius taught you, but it isn’t true. Fear doesn’t command loyalty nor earn affection… It just makes people whisper.”
“Our people are terrified of you and your father. They think you’re his clone…
But I don’t. I’ve been watching you since you were a teenager.
I know your heart, and I know what your father does to blacken it.
I know that if you would just think for a minute, look outside yourself and all the nonsense your father has forced inside your head, you would be a truly great leader.
You wouldn’t hold your people hostage here.
You wouldn’t leave our sons in the forest to die or let grown men have sex with our little girls.
You would abolish the Seraph role altogether.
You’d make it so those of us who still want to be here can finally live in peace. ”
I look away, heart pounding in my ears. “I’m not the Chief Elder.”
“But you could be. One stab to the heart is all it would take.”
My head swings back to Aiden. “He’s my father.”
“And what was Zephyr, Luna?”
My eyes pop with surprise. Both at his sharp tone and at the revelation.
“What am I?”
I blink at him, unsure how to respond.
“What are your people?”
“Everything,” I say automatically. A reflex. Something ingrained into me by my own doing.
Aiden nods slowly, accepting the response. “If you mean that, then you’ll respect their wishes. And their wish is for you not to die.”
My people who fear me. Who once demanded I be burned at the stake—worse than a witch; a demon who will never, ever be worthy of life, let alone belonging. These are the people Aiden pretends to speak for.
The wrongness of it, the absolute impossibility, hits with such a force; it’s as if only now I realize its truth.
For the best part of my life, I believed the horror that is Luna Cox was redeemed by the use I could bring as a protector. A leader. A ruthless advocate for the good of our people, unplagued by self-interest, devoid of vulnerabilities that weaken the strongest of men.
Never once have I hoped to have their love.
But like a deranged fool, I believed I had their trust.
If what Aiden is saying is true, if there are whispers and disobedience and schemes scattering like mice beneath my nose, children being sold, innocents being murdered, out of my father’s loop, out of the people’s loop…
I think of the hole beneath the fence. Of the countless people who must’ve known about it.
I force myself to stand, my mind spinning too quickly to brush the dirt off my knees and shins. “I have to go.”
Aiden doesn’t say another word as I shut the cell door and leave him to endure the punishment for my crime. I’m grateful.
It’s a long walk to the compound. There’s plenty to process.