Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 286

Arya’s POV

The garden behind the Blackbirth estate felt different in the mornings. At night the place belonged to

old stone, quiet guards, shadows, and whatever weight the house carried in its bones. But in the

morning it softened. The hedges looked less severe. The pale gravel paths stopped feeling like

something built for status and started feeling almost peaceful. The flowers along the southern side had opened properly now, little bursts of cream, blush, and deep wine-red catching the light. Even the

fountain sounded gentler in the daylight. Less like a warning. More like breath.

I sat on one of the wrought-iron benches beneath a flowering tree with a book open in my lap and sunlight touching the edge of the page. I was not reading as quickly as I usually did. I kept pausing. Not because my mind was restless for once, but because it was not. That was the strange part. My

body was still. My thoughts were not clawing at one another. Ria was stretched quietly inside me,

warm and lazy in a way that made me suspicious because peace and I were not exactly old friends.

Still, I took it while it was there.

A breeze moved through the garden and lifted a few loose strands of my hair across my cheek. I

tucked them back and lowered my eyes to the book again. It was one of the old novels Tamara had

pushed into my hands two days ago with too much ceremony, insisting I had no excuse not to read

something beautiful for once.

“Enough tragedy in your real life,” she had said.

She was not wrong.

The pages smelled faintly of age and dust and that dry sweetness old books sometimes carried. My fingers moved idly over the paper. Somewhere a bird called from the ivy wall. Somewhere beyond the

hedges I heard faint footsteps and the distant clink of something metallic from the training yard

farther off. Ordinary sounds. I had forgotten how dangerous ordinary could feel when you had not

been allowed it in too long.

I let myself sink into it a little more. The bench was warm under me now. The morning light had turned the fountain water to silver. For one brief stupid moment, I let myself imagine this was what life looked like for women who had never been dragged through blood and shame and men’s ambitions. Soft mornings. Books. Flowers. A house where nobody was coming to take something. It was a foolish thought. I knew that. Even houses like this were built on teeth. But I still let myself have the moment.

You look almost domesticated, Ria murmured.

I snorted under my breath.

“That sounds like an insult.”

286 Silk Scorn, and the Hand That Rose

It is an observation.

“Liar.”

She gave a pleased little rumble and settled again. I turned the page.

“Arya!”

Tamara’s voice reached me before she did, bright and dramatic and impossible to mistake for anyone

else’s. I looked up just as she came around the curve of the path in a sweep of pale blue morning silk and loose dark hair, moving fast enough that I knew immediately she was carrying some kind of

excitement too large for her body. I shut the book around one finger and watched her approach. She

looked like a girl with a secret and absolutely no talent for keeping it.

“You look unhinged,” I said.

Tamara pressed a hand to her chest like I had wounded her.

“What a cruel thing to say to a woman on the edge of joy.”

That made me smile before I could stop it.

“What happened?”

She did not answer immediately because she was too busy beaming. She reached the bench, dropped down beside me without grace, took my free hand in both of hers, and squeezed so hard it made me

laugh under my breath.

“Lev is throwing me a birthday celebration.”

I blinked.

“A celebration?”

She nodded violently.

“A proper one. Not one of those polite miserable dinners where old people pretend to bless you while

judging your posture. A real one. Music. Guests. flowers. too much food. all of it.”

I looked at her properly then, at the light in her face, the genuine delight. Tamara was always expressive, always alive in a room, but this was different. Younger somehow. Softer under the noise. For a second she did not look like a girl raised around power and wolves and all the sharpness that

came with both. She just looked happy. I squeezed her hand back.

“That’s good.”

“Good?” she repeated, scandalised. “Good? Arya, do you know how long I have waited for these people

<286 Silk Scorn and the Hand That Rose

to celebrate me properly without somehow turning it into a political lecture?”

I laughed.

“No.”

“Years,” she said. “Centuries, probably.”

“You’re twenty-one, not immortal.”

“Emotionally, I’ve suffered enough to qualify.”

That pulled another laugh out of me. She grinned, very pleased with herself now that she had got one.

“When is it?” I asked.

“Soon. Soon enough that I should already be panicking over what to wear.”

“You seem more delighted than panicked.”

“That is because I have decided panic can be outsourced.”

“To who?”

“To you, obviously.”

I narrowed my eyes at her.

“That sounds like a trap.”

“It is a trap.”

She leaned in, eyes gleaming.

“We’re going shopping.”

Of course we were. I should have known the excitement would not stop at a birthday announcement. Tamara was not built to carry joy quietly. She had to turn it into movement, noise, plans, clothes, drama. I looked down at the book in my lap and then back at her face.

“Right now?”

“Yes, right now.”

“You came here already dressed for battle.”

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