Chapter 283
Chapter 283
Elara’s POV
“Hold still, Alpha, or the ink will make you crooked.”
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The historian’s quill hovered over the parchment. He was thin, gray at the temples, eyes too bright for someone who had been awake half the night sorting scrolls. A table beside him sagged with bundles, seals, folded cloths, and even a cracked blade wrapped in linen.
“I did not ask for ink,” I said.
“You lived it,” he said. “Now I write it. And history will not wait for your mood.”
Cael chuckled from the side. “He has a point.”
I shot him a look. He shrugged, unapologetic, arms folded across his chest.
The square outside rattled with work. Stone dragged, ropes tightened, hammers struck iron. The monument was going up where the old market once stood. Already a ring of carved blocks circled the space, half set, half waiting. Dust hung in the air like smoke.
“Name,” the historian said.
“Elara.”
He dipped the quill. “Title.”
I hesitated. “Gamma.”
He frowned. “They call you Luna.”
“Then write both,” I said. “Luna Gamma.”
He smirked. “That will tangle the archivists.”
“Good,” I said.
The donations came in waves. A boy from Fenreach carried a bundle of broken training rods. “She taught us to stand.” He left them at the historian’s feet and ran.
Prisca from Ridge laid a necklace of glass beads on the cloth. “My grandmother’s. She told me to give it to the woman who walked through fire.”
Bex brought a map inked with red lines. “The one you tore from my hand in the war hall. You made me see what was missing.”
Even Garron came, sullen but steady, with a dagger snapped at the hilt. “Lost it in the last skirmish. Might as
13:28 Sun, Sep 28 N
Chapter 283
well bury it where it means something”
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The pile grew. Scrolls, rings, cloth patches, bits of armor, ribbons, ledgers with ink still drying. The historian catalogued cach, muttering dates and names. Eden helped him stack. Jory carried baskets back and forth. complaining about his back while sneaking bread into his mouth. Fenna swatted him and added her apron string to the pile without a word.
Mira leaned against her shield and said, “You know they will make a statue.”
“I told them no,” I said.
“They did not ask,” she said.
Across the square, the scaffold rose higher. Two stonemasons worked the shape of a figure onto the block. Not a queen, not a crowned Luna. Just a woman, standing.
My chest tightened. “I never wanted stone.”
“Too late,” Mira said.
By midday, the circle was packed. Packs pressed shoulder to shoulder, craning to see. Cael stepped to my side. His hand brushed mine once, steady, grounding.
Elder Briar cleared his throat. His voice carried louder than his size. “By order of the Crescent Court, witnessed by twenty–one packs, we set this stone in Ashfang Hollow. To mark not victory, but choice. To remember not chains, but hands. The Court calls this place the Center.”
He stepped back.
The ropes groaned. The monument rose. Dust poured down like ash as the blocks locked. The figure took shape in light. No crown. No throne. A woman in plain dress, one hand open, one hand at her side.
Gasps rippled the square. Then silence.
The historian spoke, voice shaking. “The inscription reads: To the Luna who chose herself.”
The words cut through me. I felt every breath in the crowd waiting for mine.
Cael leaned close. “Say it.”
I swallowed, then raised my voice. “Not Luna. Not Gamma. Elara. That is enough.”
The roar shook the square. Feet stamped. Shields struck stone. Voices broke the dust apart.
Vessa grinned at me over the crowd. “Too late to hide now.”
I smiled back, small but real. “I was never hiding.”
