Chapter 162

AUTHOR’S POV “Grandmother, please,” the young pup begged, tugging at the hem of her grandmother’s skirt. “Tell me the story again. The one about Luna Eliza—the Luna who changed everything.” The old woman smiled as she remembered. She sat down by the fire, lifting the small girl into her lap. Outside the cottage, stars blinked in the night sky like they were listening, too. “Ah,” the grandmother sighed. “The Luna who changed everything, hmm? Well then… let me take you back to a time when the world still doubted what a woman could do.” And just like that, Eliza was there again. Not as legend. Not as the Luna in someone else’s story. But as herself. A woman who once stood trembling in the shadows of men… and chose to walk forward anyway. * The first time Eliza saw her face in a hand-drawn portrait, she nearly dropped the scroll. It had arrived by a caravan bundled in with letters. One of the guards unrolled the scroll and grinned. “Looks like the entire east knows your name now, my lady.”