Chapter 4: Homecoming
The gates of Clan Chimaera opened as the sun rose, casting gold across the mountain ridges and stone bastions of the northern stronghold. Twin banners of black and silver fluttered in the wind—one bearing the ancient crest of the Chimaera, the other newly embroidered with the mark of the Draconic Luna, woven in divine silver thread.
Jessica rode at the front, beside her uncle—her father now—on a snow-white war mare cloaked in ceremonial silks. Thorne, Alpha of the Chimaera, sat tall and proud beside her, his normally stoic face unable to hide the softness that had taken root in his storm-grey eyes.
Trumpets did not sound. There was no thunderous fanfare. Instead, every warrior and elder, every child and healer, every blacksmith and seer of the Clan stood outside the gates in reverent silence, heads bowed.
And then… one voice.
A young girl, no more than ten, broke free from the line and ran forward, clutching a bundle of flowers tied in dragon-scale ribbon. “Lady Luna!” she cried, smiling wide.
Jessica blinked in surprise, catching the flowers as the girl pressed them into her hands. She opened her mouth to speak, but the moment passed too quickly—the child was pulled gently back by a watchful mother.
Yet that single cry broke the silence like sun through winter clouds.
And then the cheers came.
“Long live our Luna!”
“Blessed be the Goddess’s flame!”
“Welcome home, Jessica Chimaera!”
Tears stung Jessica’s eyes as the crowd surged around them in a wave of celebration. Hands reached out to touch her stirrup, to toss petals at her feet, to offer her the honor she had never known under the Valir name. She looked over at Thorne, and found his eyes shining too.
She had been reborn in flame.
Now, she was being embraced in light.
Later that evening, within the warmth of the Great Hall, a fire crackled high in the stone hearth. Meat and spice filled the air, and laughter echoed from the long tables where warriors toasted, children danced, and elders whispered of destiny fulfilled. It was not a courtly banquet like the ones she’d suffered through in Valir—it was family gathered in its truest sense: whole and alive.
Jessica sat beside Thorne on the high platform, a goblet of berrywine untouched in her hand. She had shed her ceremonial silks for a velvet tunic in midnight blue, stitched with silver thread to match the crest now recognized across the Clan.
She was glowing. But not from the firelight.
From freedom.
“Do you remember,” Thorne said beside her, watching the merriment, “when you were six and climbed the roof of the library to hide from your etiquette tutor?”
Jessica laughed. “You told everyone it was a crow nesting on the roof just so I could have five more minutes alone.”
“You always hated being told who to become,” he said with a smile. “I just never realized you’d become something the old legends envied.”
Jessica looked up at him then—really looked. The man who had knelt beside her broken body and begged the Goddess to take him instead. The man who had stood beside her without hesitation in that chamber. The man who had never married, never taken a mate, never fathered a child.
Until now.
“I should have called you Father a long time ago,” she said softly.
Thorne turned toward her. “And I should have fought harder to bring you home.”
“You did everything you could.”
“I didn’t burn that Clan to the ground,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to do.”
Jessica chuckled. “Maybe that’s why the Goddess trusted you with me.”
He paused, then looked at her with a twinkle of mischief behind the weight in his eyes.
“Would you like me to throw you a mating ball?” he asked, deadpan. “To find your match?”
Jessica blinked at him, caught off guard. “Wait—what?”
He gave a regal shrug, though he was clearly teasing. “You’re of royal blood, divine-marked, destined to rule. The bards will sing of you for centuries. You’ll need an Alpha by your side, sooner or later. Shouldn’t we get started?”
She stared at him for a moment in stunned silence—then burst out laughing. Her wine nearly sloshed over.
“Oh, Father…” she grinned, shaking her head. “The Goddess didn’t say I’d need to look for him. She said you’d find him for me.”
Thorne raised a brow. “She did, didn’t she?”
Jessica nodded, still smiling. “She didn’t say when. And I’m not even old enough to shift yet. That doesn’t happen until I’m twenty-one, remember?”
“Ah, yes. The traditional mark of adult strength.” He smiled. “I suppose you’re still just a hatchling then?”
Jessica leaned against his arm playfully. “Exactly. We have time. Can we just… be a family for now?”
His shoulders relaxed at those words. “Yes,” he said. “We can.”
She grinned. “If you haven’t found my true mate and introduced us by the time I shift at twenty-one… then we can have a ball.”
He chuckled deeply. “You drive a hard bargain, Luna.”
“Of course I do. I’m your daughter.”
Thorne reached out and gently tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, his hand lingering with quiet affection. “You were always mine, little fireheart. Even when I couldn’t say it.”
Jessica leaned into him, and for the first time since her rebirth, she closed her eyes—not in fear or pain, but in peace.
Around them, the Clan celebrated into the night, toasting their new Luna with music, firelight, and joy.
And above it all, the moon glowed high and full in the sky, bearing witness to the promise of a future finally set right.
