Chapter b249 /b

E

A Luna Trial. Alexander was going to host a Luna Trial to rece me less than a month after my death.

The crowd went wild, cheers and apuse turning into a din in the space. Meanwhile, my heart was cracking inside my chest. For a moment, when Alexander had been so gentle with me in the kitchen, I’d thought that maybe he did love me after all.

Maybe he was grieving me the same way Liam was. Maybe this whole week had been as hard for him as it had been for me.

But no. Here he was, barely a week after burying me, announcing to a room full of people that he was ready to find my recement.

“Applications will be open starting tomorrow,” Alexander continued. “The trial will consist of several rounds of varying tasks, and the winner will be Luna of Ashw and adoptive mother to my heir.”

Adoptive mother. Some stranger was going to raise my son. Some stranger was going to take my ce in Alexander’s bed, in his life, in everything that had once been mine, even if only for a little while.

My hands began to shake as the rage built up within me like a pot about to boil over. How dare he? How fucking dare he move on this quickly?

Before I could stop myself, I was pushing through the crowd toward the tform.

I had to tell him. I had to tell him the truth-

“E. No.” Lilith suddenly stepped in my way and grabbed my wrist. Her eyes were cold and fierce.

She dragged me out of the banquet hall before I could take another step further.

“Let go of me,” I hissed once we were in the hallway.

Lilith didn’t release my arm until we were safely in her room with the door locked, far away from any prying eyes or ears. Then she whirled on me with a fire in her gaze that I’d never seen before.

“What were you thinking?” she snapped. “You almost revealed yourself in front of an entire room full of people!”

“So what if I did?” I shot back. “Maybe it’s time everyone knew the truth.”

“E-”

“What if you’re wrong about all of this? What if there really is no punishment for telling people who I am? What if you’re just being superstitious?”

Lilith’s face went pale. “Superstitious. That’s what you think this is. Superstition.”

“How do you actually know that someone could die if I tell them the truth?” I bit out. “Have you ever tested it? Have you ever told anyone who you really are?”

+25 bBONUS /b

Lilith stared at me for a long moment. Then she walked over to an old trunk at the end of the bed, opened it, and pulled out a man folder. She handed it to me without a word.

I opened it and found newspaper clippings inside. Old ones dated over twenty years ago.

The first headline read: “LOCAL SHOP OWNER DIES IN FREAK ACCIDENT.”

“Maxwell Webb, 45, died yesterday when a delivery truck lost control and crashed into his store. ording to employees and eye witnesses, Mr. Webb had been speaking with a customer when the ident urred. The customer, who has not been identified, fled the scene before authorities arrived…”

My stomach dropped, all pretense of righteous anger slipping away from me as the implications set in. “Mom …?” I whispered in a suddenly small voice.

b“/bI was desperate,” Lilith said quietly. “I’d only been reborn for a few months, and I was trying to figure out what had happened to me. I found someone who had known me in my previous life–Maxwell had been a friend of my family’s. I thought… I thought if I told him who I was, maybe he could help me understand.”

Tears blurred my vision as I looked at the third clipping. “SHOP OWNER’S DAUGHTER DIES IN SUSPICIOUS FIRE.”

“Sarah Webb, b22/bb, /bdiedst night when her apartment caught fire. The ze appears to have started from faulty wiring, but investigators are puzzled by the rapid spread of the mes. Miss Webb had recently inherited her father’s shop following his death in a traffic ident…”

“Two people,” Lilith said. “Two people died because I told them the truth about who I was. I naively went to his daughter after his death and told her my identity, and she died dayster.”

I sank into the chair behind me, still holding the clippings. “But that could have been a coincidence-”

“No, E. It wasn’t a coincidence.” Lilith pulled out more clippings. “Because there was a third person. Maxwell’s business partner. He died right after I told him. Heart attack. He was thirty–two years old and perfectly healthy.”

I stared at the clippings spread out in front of me. Three people. All dead within a week of Lilith telling them her true identity. fn9442 This update is avable on Find1Novel/fn9442

“That was when I realized what the curse really meant,” Lilith said. “It’s not just that we get a second chance at life. It’s that we have to stay dead to everyone from our first life. If we don’t… people suffer for it.”

My throat constricted. “But you don’t know for sure that it was because you told him-”

“I tested it.” Lilith’s voice was t. “Five yearster, I was lonely and depressed and desperate. I found another friend from my old life. I thought maybe the first three had been flukes. So I told her who I was.”

She handed me another clipping. This one was from five yearster. “TEACHER DIES IN SCHOOL FIRE.” “She died the next day,” Lilith said. “Along with two of her students who tried to help her escape.”

I felt sick. Five people. Five people had died because Lilith had tried to reim her old identity.

But then another thought hit me. A thought that made my blood run cold.

The farmer.

I’d told the farmer who I was. I’d insisted that I was Luna E of Ashw when he’d said I was dead.

“Oh, Goddess,” I whispered. “The farmer.”

“What farmer?” Lilith asked.

“The one who drove me back to Ashw. I told him who I was. I argued with him about it.” I looked up at Lilith with growing panic. “If what you’re saying is true, then he could die. He could die because of me. He could already be dead.”

Lilith’s face went ashen. She didn’t need to confirm it with words for me to know that my hunch was likely

correct.

Later that night, long after I had put Lucien to bed and the banquet had ended, I found myself pacing my tiny servants‘ room with my heart leaping in my chest. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think, and it had nothing to do with the Luna Trial.

That poor farmer… He was an innocent man. If I had condemned him to an irreversible fate, then I could never forgive myself.

But I had to know. I couldn’t rest until I did.

The house was quiet as I made my way through the corridors. The banquet guests had gone home and most of the staff was asleep for the night, having already cleaned up. Only one light was on in the parlor—I heard Alexander’s deep voice within, although I didn’t hear what he was saying as I quickly tiptoed past.

No one noticed me slip out the back door and run off into the woods.