A Rejected Luna – Her Rise to Power
Chapter 9 – Demands
KAEL’S PERSPECTIVE
The wedding was supposed to fix everything.
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A grand celebration. Something bold enough to erase the whispers, the shame, the slow rot that had crept into Silverlake ever since Marcia left.
But to throw such an event, I needed money. And money, it turned out, was the one thing I no longer had.
I went to every contact I could think of—families that once stood with us, packs we had fought beside, merchants who owed me favors. Most of them wouldn’t even open their doors. A few were polite enough to listen, only to decline with tight smiles and words like “uncertainty” and “risk.”
They hadn’t forgotten Marcia. Hadn’t forgiven me.
I could see it in their eyes—I had betrayed her, and in doing so, ruined my credibility.
When I returned home empty–handed, exhausted and humiliated, Eunice was waiting at the top of the stairs.
She didn’t ask how the meetings went. Didn’t ask how I was doing.
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She folded her arms and said, “If only you managed to get her dowry.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Marcia,” she scoffed. “She was born with everything. Lands, gold, connections. You were her husband—and you walked away with nothing? Goddess, Kael. It’s almost embarrassing.”
My jaw tightened. “That’s not how it works.”
“No,” she said, brushing past me, “it’s just how you let it work.”
She’d changed since the engagement was announced. Not all at once, but steadily. Where Marcia had carried herself with quiet dignity, Eunice paraded her status like a crown she hadn’t earned.
She introduced herself to every servant as General Eunice Hale, as if saying the name gave her power. She made small, cruel comments about the decor Marcia had chosen, accused the staff of slacking off, and complained that the quarters were too simple for someone of her station.
“You’re not married yet,” my mother reminded her once. “A good daughter–in–law respects the house she enters.”
Eunice raised an eyebrow. “And a good mother–in–law should stay out of my way.”
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The words struck like a slap, but my mother said nothing. She simply rose, dignity intact, and left the room.
Marcia would never have spoken to her like that. Not even at her
worst.
And that was the problem. Everything Eunice did made me
think of Marcia. Not because they were alike, but because they weren’t.
At first, I told myself Eunice was just nervous. That she was trying too hard to fit in. But the truth was uglier.
She wasn’t trying at all.
She wanted to replace Marcia—in name, in place, in memory. She mocked her every chance she got, as if tearing her down would lift herself higher.
“This dress is so outdated,” she said one evening, holding up a gown Marcia had left behind. “She had no fashion sense.”
“Then why are you wearing it?” I asked, before I could stop myself.
Eunice turned sharply. “Excuse me?”
“I said you don’t have to go through her things. We can get new ones made.”
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She tossed the dress onto the floor. “You’re still hung up on her, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
I didn’t answer. Because maybe I was.
Not in the way Eunice meant. I wasn’t pining after Marcia. I wasn’t dreaming of her return. But I was starting to see her more clearly now that she was gone. Starting to realize all the things she had done—silently, without fanfare—to hold this pack together.
Eunice didn’t understand any of it. She didn’t want to.
She wanted dresses, attention, power. And a wedding. A massive one. Something to remind the world that she’d won.
I had fallen in love with an image—a warrior, a rebel, someone fierce and free. But beneath that, she was… petty. Jealous. Greedy.
She wanted the title, not the responsibility. The crown, not the weight.
I stared at her across the dining table one night, as she berated a servant for serving warm water instead of chilled, and all I felt
was… tired.
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Chapter 9 – Demands
For the first time since the divorce, I thought–
Had I made a mistake?
And if I had…
Was it already too late to fix it?
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