e. That was exactly what he wanted, wasn't it. The Luna who existed only in name, who signed no ledgers and gave no orders, who could

tugging the comb through my h

three years ago, back when I still believed the man I was marrying would never let anyone speak over me. I could see the anger sitting

flection in the small cracked mirror propped

ll and demand what was mine, how I shouldn't have let them push me out here without a fight. Instead she swallowed it down and said,

ace in this entire compoun

nce and whispered about how strange it was for a Luna to garden like a servant. I hadn't cared then. I didn't care now. Every rosebush, every trailing

e roses when Lyra's voi

wned the ground beneath her feet, "and replace it with something

would answer. I straightened my spine, pulling together whatever aur

uproot it

ike I had just given her exactly t

, stepping half in front of me, and I loved her

stripped of every title I had carried into this pack. "Don't you know I'm carrying t

spill out right there in the dirt between the roses and watch the color drain from her smug face. I forced myself

en I heard

oice the way he never once came running for mine. "What's wrong?" he

to her stomach like the mere sight of an old rosebush had caused her

the maids.

could soften it. "You can't uproot it

hing gentle in it. "I'm doing this for

garden," I said, "a

ing beyond the garden wall slowed their steps to listen. "Do you understand the value

to him. Tears gathered hot behind my eyes, and I hated m

hed shovels bite into soil I had turned myself, root by root, three years of quiet mornings undone in the space of a single afternoon. Ma

actually love him, that finally broke something loose in my chest. I watched its roots tear free of the earth, pa

ruined beds and understood, with a clarity that felt almost