A Cursed Luna

CHAPTER 1

SERAPHINA

"Hurry or we will be late."

"The event does not even start for another hour," the second girl answered, already out of breath.

I pushed myself up from the floor and went to the window just as the first one added, "I cannot wait to see the decorations in the palace."

"Who cares about decorations? I want to see Princess Celestia's dress. I heard they sewed real diamonds into it."

A scream cut her off. The girl who had spoken first pointed straight at me.

"It is only her," she spat.

Both of them stared at me with the same look of disgust. I could guess how I looked with my face pressed to the small pane of glass in that tiny window. My hair was tangled. My cheeks were thin. The taller girl grabbed her friend's hand and they rushed away, as if a longer look from me might ruin their fine clothes. I stepped back and waited until their footsteps faded. I waited a few minutes more to be sure no one else was coming. Only then did I go outside.

The night was bright with moonlight. You could almost feel the excitement hanging in the air. Far ahead, thousands of lights wrapped the grounds, columns, and pillars of Eldoria Palace. They winked like tiny stars. A wind from the east carried the smell of food being cooked for the banquet. My stomach twisted with hunger. I pressed a hand against it and tried not to think about the tables that would soon be full. Maybe I could find scraps once everyone else had eaten.

I stood there longer than I meant to. The palace looked almost unreal from this distance, bright and warm while my little house sat in the dark behind me. I knew every crack in those walls. I knew the leak in the roof and the cardboard I used to cover the worst gaps. Tonight that house felt even smaller.

"Out of the way, you!" a man growled behind me.

I moved aside at once. A stocky, red-faced man with several heavy trays pushed past. He glanced back, glared, and muttered a string of curses. I did not answer. I had learned long ago that answering only made things worse. My eyes went to the palace again. In about an hour there would be a banquet for my sister, Princess Celestia, and her first shift.

The girl had said Celestia's dress was stitched with real diamonds. I sighed and ran my hands over my own thin clothes, washed too many times. The fabric was rough under my fingers. It was hard to believe we were sisters. Twins, even. The difference between us would have been funny if I could have laughed at my own life.

Celestia lived in the richly furnished palace. I lived in a small, rundown house on the palace grounds. It had one tiny window, a leaking roof, and cracked walls. Celestia was spoiled and given whatever she wanted. I washed my own clothes. I took my meals from the kitchen with the palace workers. I almost always ate after everyone else. That meant scraps, burnt bits, leftover pieces no one wanted, or nothing at all.

All of this came from an old prophecy of the Eldoria kingdom. That prophecy had turned my life sour, so I knew every word by heart. I closed my eyes. I could still see the lines written in an old book with yellow pages. I had read it again and again, as if reading it enough times might change what it said.

"Let the prince and peasant, the highborn and lowborn of the Eldoria kingdom beware. Let them heed the signs and the portents, for it is written: two children, twins, will be born. The one shall be full of light, laughter and love, a leader who will bind and unify. Its dark twin shall seek to destroy, to kill and ruin. Its powers and influence shall grow until Eldoria is buried in dust and ashes..."

After our mother gave birth to Celestia and me, she decided to hide one of us until our destinies were clearer. She thought the people of Eldoria might try to kill one of us because of the prophecy. I thought she was right. Fear makes people do terrible things. I, Seraphina Vale, was the twin who had been hidden. Only a few people knew who I was. For a time I was happy and well cared for.

Things changed after my mother, the queen, died under strange circumstances. My father turned against me. Celestia did too. My father became sure that I was the evil twin from the prophecy. I was pushed aside and forced to live like a servant on the palace grounds. I was miserable and alone until the day everything inside me shifted.

A smile touched my lips when I thought of the day I turned sixteen. That was the day I received my wolf, Regina. She was not like the wolves others in the pack had. She was different and strong, a wolf who carried the wisdom and memories of generations of Vale wolves. The first time I shifted, I had been so excited I could hardly breathe. Even now I could hear Regina's warning.

"Do not tell anyone you have your wolf," she had said. "Keep it a secret so they do not make things harder for you."

I had followed that advice at once. I hid the change. I hid the strength. I hid the one good thing that had come to me in years.

Now my wolf stirred. She caught a scent I had never known. It was not food. It was not flowers. I could not place it at all, yet it pulled at me as if a string had been tied around my chest. I tried to stay still. My legs would not listen. They carried me forward, past my house, down the path to the palace gardens.

A hundred different flowers were in bloom there. The air was thick with their smell, sweet and heavy. The only people in the garden were two figures pressed close together under the moonlight. For a moment I thought they were part of the shadows. Then I understood three things at the same time.

They were kissing. One of them was my sister. The man she was kissing was my mate.

Before I could stop myself, I made a sound that was half whimper and half groan. The pair sprang apart. I had eyes only for the tall man with blond hair. He stared at me, shock written on his face. His nostrils flared. I knew he smelled it too, the scent that told him what we were to each other.

"Mate," Regina purred.

My heart raced with excitement. Then it turned to dread as he looked me over from head to toe. His gaze moved from my worn clothes to my thin face and stayed there, as if he could not believe what he was seeing.

"You?" he said in a deep voice that matched his size. "How the hell are you also my mate?"