Chapter 10 Blood of the Forgotten

Kaela's POV

The fire's dancing light illuminated my tent as I lay awake with the residual tingle of Rael's kiss on my lips.

It hadn't been a dream.

The kiss had been real. Raw. A truth neither of us wanted to speak aloud.

But what came after... that would decide everything.

Slowly, I got up as my body protested from fighting battles while being at the shrine and enduring traumatic mental events that continued to disrupt my vision. The polished copper bowl revealed to me a face that was unrecognizable. My eyes had changed-just slightly. Brighter. Moonlight illuminated their precious depths.

I wrapped Rael's spare cloak around my shoulders and stepped into the night. The camp was quiet but tense, like the wind itself knew something had shifted. The military personnel saluted me with mixed responses when I walked by.

People around me failed to recognize my identity. Not really.

Neither did I.

My heart finally stopped trembling, and I breathed a sigh of relief at the center of the camp. I walked to the healing tent that treated soldiers wounded during the previous day's combat. My footsteps slowed. Inside, a boy no older than fifteen cried out in pain as a healer tried to mend the burns across his arms.

The fire-my fire-had done that.

I nearly turned away. But the moon inside me pulsed once. A reminder. A summons.

I stepped inside, ignoring the startled glances.

"Let me," I said softly, kneeling beside the boy.

The healer, a tired woman with silver rings on every finger, looked me over skeptically. "Do you have training?"

"No," I said. "But I have... something else."

I placed my hands gently on the boy's arm. He whimpered, flinched. And then-he stilled.

My palms glowed.

Not with flame.

With silver light.

The burns faded. Skin knitted back together. Pain dissolved.

The healer gasped.

The boy blinked. "Are you an angel?"

I smiled faintly. "Not quite."

But even as I moved to the next patient, I could feel the stares. The whispers.

Rael arrived minutes later, his armor half-buttoned, eyes wide as he took in the scene.

"You healed them," he said.

I stood there wiping my hands on the garment. "I didn't know I could."

The mixture of admiration and fear appeared in his eyes when he gazed at me. "You're changing."

"I think I already changed."

Rael stepped closer, voice low. "That kind of magic-moonlight healing-it hasn't been seen in centuries. Not since-"

"Since the last Moon Shard," I finished for him.

He didn't deny it.

He cupped my face with his quivering hand as if he needed to etch my features into memory for the split that life was about to make.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

He looked past me-toward the royal camp where his father slept in a tent of gold and lies.

"I have to tell him," he said. "But not everything."

"Rael-"

"I'll protect you, Kaela. Even if I have to lie to the king himself."

My heart ached at the vow. But even as I touched his hand, I felt the tide changing.

Because secrets could only hold so long before they broke open.

And I was tired of hiding.