Chapter 5

A Luna Without Power.

Turns out being called Luna doesn’t mean a whole lot when nobody in the room’s actually decided to treat you like one.

Found that out my first council session, which Kaelan told me I could sit in on but didn’t tell me much else about, so I went in half-blind, sat myself down in the chair set out for me near the head of the table, and watched a room full of grown men and women talk right past me like I was part of the furniture.

There were maybe a dozen of them seated around those long table heads of the noble families, a couple of Kaelan’s senior warriors, an older man Mira later told me handled the territory’s trade agreements. Isolde sat near her brother, the Beta, close enough to the front that it was plain as anything where the real power in that room sat, and it wasn’t in my chair.

They discussed grain shipments. Border patrols. Some dispute between two families over water rights that had apparently been simmering for years. Kaelan spoke, and people really listened, leaned forward when he talked, went quiet the second his voice started up. I tried to follow along as best I could, but half the conversation assumed I already knew things I didn’t, names of families, old grievances, agreements made years before I ever set foot in this territory.

Nobody asked my opinion on anything. Not once, the whole meeting.

Afterward, walking back through the halls with Kaelan a few steps ahead of me, I finally said something about it.

“They don’t look at me when they talk,” I said. “In there. Not one time.”

“They don’t need to,” he said, not unkindly, just matter-of-fact the way he seemed to say most things. “You don’t have to prove anything to that room. Your position isn’t up for debate.”

“Feels like it is,” I said. “Feels like everybody in that room’s already decided what my position’s worth, and it isn’t much.”

He stopped walking, looked back at me. “Let them think about what they like. It doesn’t change what you are here for.”

“Maybe not to you.” I met his eyes, made myself hold there even though it cost me something to do it. “But I have to live in this territory. Deal with these people. If they don’t respect the title, I don’t actually have it, not really, whatever it says on paper.”

Something crossed his face, not quite agreement, not quite an argument either. “That’s not a fight worth having, Elira. Not over council opinion.”

“Maybe it’s the only fight worth having,” I said back, and left it there, because I could tell we weren’t going to agree on it that day, and pushing further wasn’t going to change his mind any faster.

So I started paying attention. Properly, the way I used to pay attention back in Roran’s kitchens, watching which servants got favor and which got blamed, learning who to avoid and who might slip you an extra portion if you caught them on a good day. Same skill, different room.

I learned that the trade elder, Bellamon, had lost a son to a border skirmish two winters back and hadn’t fully trusted Kaelan’s judgment on defense since. Learned that two of the noble families were bound by an old marriage alliance and tended to vote together on anything involving land. I learned that Isolde’s brother, the Beta, rarely spoke first in any meeting and waited, always, to see which way the room leaned before he committed himself to a position, which told me plenty about the kind of man he was even without him saying a word to me directly.

Nessa helped, when she could. She’d bring my meals up sometimes instead of leaving it to the kitchen staff, and she talked easy, casual, the way people do when they’ve stopped being careful around you.

“Councilor Vasha doesn’t like anybody who wasn’t born into it,” she told me once, setting down a tray. “Doesn’t matter if you’re Omega or noble-born. If you weren’t raised knowing the rules, she’ll find a way to remind you that you don’t belong.”

“Good to know,” I said, and meant it. That was one more name to keep filed away.

I still thought, sometimes, about what I’d overheard that first week: those two voices behind a half-shut door, talking about somebody feeding information out, somebody Kaelan trusted, maybe being the one doing it. Hadn’t heard anything else like it since. But I hadn’t forgotten it either. Kept turning it over in the quiet moments, wondering who those voices belonged to, wondering if I’d recognize them if I heard them again.

The next council meeting, maybe a week later, went differently from the start. I could feel it the second I walked in some tightness in the room that hadn’t been there before, Bellamon’s jaw set hard, Vasha sitting straighter than usual with a look on her face like a woman who’d come prepared for something.

Kaelan was proposing a new arrangement for the western patrol routes, shifting resources away from an area Bellamon’s family had traditionally guarded. Reasonable enough, from what little I understood of it by then. Bellamon didn’t think so.

“With respect,” he said, though there wasn’t much respect in his voice, “this decision weakens a border that’s already been tested once this season. I’d ask the Alpha to reconsider.”

“The decision’s made,” Kaelan said. “The western route sees less traffic than it used to. Resources go where they’re needed.”

That should’ve been the end of it. Wasn’t.

Vasha leaned forward, folding her hands neatly on the table in front of her, and I felt the whole room’s attention shift toward her the way water finds a low spot.

“Perhaps,” she said, voice smooth as anything, “the Alpha is distracted these days. New responsibilities. A new Luna to settle into the household.” Her eyes cut toward me, quick, deliberate. “An Omega bride, no less. One imagines that it requires a certain amount of attention. Understandable if the territory’s defense has slipped a little further down the list.”

The room went quiet in that particular way that means everyone heard exactly what was said and exactly what it meant.

They weren’t arguing with Kaelan anymore.

They were using me to do it.