CHAPTER 9 : THE WARNING

The world just froze. Lyria locked eyes with the stranger—silver, cold, searching—right in the middle of Selene’s chambers. A heartbeat, maybe less? Neither of them moved. No one said a word. The chest between them stayed cracked open. Lyria clutched the strange parchment, her pulse hammering so hard it hurt. She was caught. The man was tall and broad, all shadows and black clothes. His face hid under a hood or just the way the light fell—she couldn’t tell. And yet, something about him nagged at her. Almost familiar, but slippery, just out of reach. Minutes felt like hours. He broke the silence. “What exactly are you looking for?” His voice: low, steady, unnervingly calm. But underneath? There was an edge. Lyria pushed to her feet, every bone in her body telling her to run. She stayed rooted. Something was off. He wasn’t pulling a weapon, wasn’t calling out—almost like he didn’t want anyone to interrupt. She realized it at once—he wasn’t just not raising the alarm, he genuinely didn’t want anyone to know she was there. That thought put her instantly on guard. She forced herself to sound brave. “I could ask you the same thing.” The man’s mouth twitched—not quite a smile, not quite anything. “You don’t belong here.” She shot back, “Neither do you.” A flicker in his eyes. Approval? For a second, it looked like it. That was new. No one approved of her, not lately. He glanced at the chest, then the parchment. His face darkened. “Put that back.” His tone made her pause. It was urgent—too urgent. Why did he care? “What’s so important about this?” she pressed. “No.” Quick—too quick, and way too final. He didn’t even want to talk about it. She tightened her grip, half for courage. “I think I’ll keep it.” His stare sharpened. The air shifted. Suddenly, things felt dangerous, truly dangerous. Before anything else could happen—footsteps sounded outside. Both of them froze. The man cursed under his breath. Then, something she didn’t expect—he stepped toward her. Fast. Close enough her hand twitched toward her dagger. “Listen,” he hissed, barely audible. “You need to leave.” “What?” she whispered back. “Leave the palace.” He glanced at the door. The steps drew closer. Lyria felt her throat close. “Why?” He went even quieter. “Because you’re running out of time.” Then he vanished—not magic, but close enough: one second he stood there, the next he was gone, slipping through a hidden panel behind the bookshelf. The wall slid back into place, erasing him completely. Lyria blinked. Was that real? A secret passage, here in Selene’s chambers? She barely had time to process before the door opened. A maid bustled in with clean linens and froze, shocked. But the girl didn’t seem to notice the open chest or Lyria’s panic. Lyria muttered a quick excuse and slipped away, mind spinning. The passage. The stranger. The parchment. Nothing fit, but somehow, it was all tangled up together. She just couldn’t see how. The next morning felt all wrong. Tension pulsed through the corridors—servants whispering, guards on edge. Everything crackled with nerves, like the whole palace knew a storm was brewing. Lyria dug through her mother’s journal, desperate for anything—a hint, an answer, a clue. Hours blurred past. Then, in some half-forgotten entry, she found a single line: “The Eclipse Court will return when the False Moon rises.” She stared at it. Eclipse Court? False Moon? She’d never heard those before. Nyra stirred beside her. “I don’t like this.” Neither did Lyria, not for a second. Three gentle knocks interrupted them. Not a servant’s usual knock. Different—soft, careful, almost secret. She opened the door. Nobody there. Then, way down the hall, a young servant girl—sixteen or seventeen, trembling head down—hurried over. “L-Lady Lyria?” the girl stammered, so terrified her words barely made it out. Lyria’s worry flared. “What is it?” The servant glanced up and down the corridor, then pressed a folded note into Lyria’s palm—so fast no one else saw. “What’s this?” The girl paled. “You have to read it.” Lyria frowned. “Who sent you?” “I can’t say,” the servant whispered, voice cracking. “Why not?” The girl looked more scared than anything Lyria had ever seen. “Because they’ll kill me.” The words sent ice down Lyria’s spine. Before she could ask more, the girl stepped away and fled, vanishing around the corner. With shaky hands, Lyria unfolded the note. Only six words: Leave before the next full moon. She stared. The handwriting was strange. But the message matched the stranger’s warning from last night. Leave. Run. Now. Different people, same message. All risking something to get it to her. That made her cold inside. It meant whatever was coming was close. Too close. Only three weeks until the full moon. The day drifted by in a fog. She couldn’t shake the girl’s fear, the bone-deep terror in her eyes. Someone in the palace knew something—something big—but what? Why send warnings at all? By evening, rain battered the windows. Thunder rolled down the mountains. The palace felt like a cage. Lyria sat by her window, the note turning over and over in her hands, searching for meaning she couldn’t see. A knock—this time Talia. She looked terrible: pale, shaken, wrong. Lyria shot to her feet. “What happened?” Talia avoided her gaze, swallowing hard. Something awful. “Talia,” Lyria snapped, unwilling to wait. “Tell me.” Finally, Talia met her eyes—and the words she dreaded came tumbling out. “The servant girl.” Lyria already knew. Too much dread to be anything else. “What about her?” Talia’s face crumpled. “They found her.” The air vanished from the room. “Where?” Lyria managed to ask. A silence that sliced deeper than any blade. Talia whispered, “Dead.” The note slipped from Lyria’s fingers and drifted to the floor. Her mind blanked. The frightened girl. The warning. Now gone. Killed for helping her. For knowing. For speaking up. Anyone who tried to help her was marked. And suddenly, every warning felt even more urgent—no more time