Underwater: The Silent Luna novel Chapter 68

Chapter 68

Meadow’s heart felt heavier than it should have after the conversation in the garden.

Anyone else would have been overjoyed.

She had been accepted.

Chosen.

Seen.

Amber had promised to make her Luna.

Had promised to teach her.

Had promised to hand over power.

Those words should have lifted Meadow into the clouds. They should have sent her spinning with excitement, pride, purpose. Any

girl from the outer territories would have danced for days at such a declaration.

Yet all Meadow could feel was grief, quiet, suffocating grief.

Amber was dying.

Two years.

The thought pressed against Meadow’s chest like a stone she could not lift. Two years was both an eternity and a blink. Long enough to plan, to pretend, to hope. Short enough for terror to wrap its fingers around every hour. She replayed Amber’s trembling voice in her mind again and again, the iron will cracking beneath exhaustion she had tried to hide. Meadow had grown up with sickness, with pain, with the sound of someone she loved breathing like it hurt. She recognized the signs even when wrapped in silk.

She wondered what kind of illness could bend a woman as unbreakable as Amber into something so fragile.

But she dared not ask.

Some wounds were not hers to open.

So instead, her thoughts drifted to action, to what she could do. Meadow had never been the type to sit with helplessness. If there was pain, she treated it. If there was suffering, she stood beside it. And if there was work, she did it with her whole soul.

She would help Ethan start his physiotherapy.

She would fight for his legs as fiercely as Amber had fought for his heart.

And somehow, quietly, gently, she would also try to help Amber.

If there was even the smallest chance that the woman could be saved…

She would find it.

The idea took root in her chest and refused to release her. She did not know how. She did not know where to begin. But she knew

who she was, someone who refused to surrender without a fight.

When dinner time came, Meadow walked into the dining room with a subdued heart.

Her steps were light. Measured. She moved like someone afraid to disturb the air around her. The room itself felt different tonight.

Still large. Still grand. But colder in ways that had nothing to do with temperature.

The atmosphere had reverted to normal.

Amber was once again stoic.

Unsmiling.

Unreachable.

The softness from earlier was gone as though it had never happened. The woman who had spoken of death and legacy in the garden

had vanished behind the cold mask of Alpha command.

Ashley was quiet. Too quiet. Her hands barely moved as she ate, gaze fixed on her plate, shoulders tight with something unspoken. Levi kept to himself, eyes distant, thoughts clearly elsewhere.

The fragile warmth from earlier had vanished as if it had never existed.

It unsettled Meadow more than she wanted to admit.

She bowed to greet them respectfully before taking her seat.

“Next time,” Amber said evenly, breaking the silence with surgical precision, “just sign the greetings. Rashel will translate. That’s

what your husband is paying her for. No more bowing.”

Every muscle in Meadow’s body stiffened. The correction wasn’t harsh, but it was absolute. Meadow stilled, then signed her thanks

with careful clarity.

Amber’s gaze lingered on her longer than necessary.

She was worried.

Both her sons were unreachable. Neither Ethan nor Joseph had returned her calls. That alone unsettled her far more than she allowed her face to reveal. To anyone watching, she looked composed. In control. But beneath the surface, unease coiled tightly.

“Do you have Ethan’s phone number?” Amber asked Meadow suddenly.

The question sliced cleanly through the room.

Meadow nodded immediately.

There was no reason to lie.

Amber’s lips curved faintly, not quite a smile, but something close. A whisper of relief touched her features before discipline

smothered it. Unknown to Meadow, Amber had already confirmed what she suspected. While the women were out on their outing,

Amber had ordered Ethan’s room searched.

They found the phone he bought for Meadow.

The staff had reported that only Ethan’s number and Victoria’s number were saved.

And now Meadow had just confirmed she had Ethan’s number.

Which meant,

She truly wasn’t lying.

“Have you contacted him?” Amber asked.

Meadow hesitated, but nodded again.

The pause was not guilt. It was awareness. Of privacy. Of the intimacy a call between husband and wife carried.

“We chatted two nights ago on the phone he got me,” she signed, and Rashel translated.

For a brief moment, Amber burst into laughter.

Not cruel laughter.

Not mocking laughter.

Relieved laughter.

Levi turned toward her in surprise. “What’s funny, darling?”

Amber wiped at the corner of her eye and looked at Meadow.

“She’s too honest for her own good.”

Meadow grew shy instantly, lowering her gaze. Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment, the truth of the statement sitting gently,

but firmly, on her shoulders.

Lying had never come naturally to her. And she never saw the point in practicing it. Lies complicated things. Truth, no matter how heavy, always had a strange way of setting things straight.

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“Meadow shouldn’t even have had a phone that night,” Amber continued calmly, “and the phone Ethan bought her was supposed to be a secret, but she just confessed to breaking my rule.”

Meadow’s shoulders drooped in mild shame.

She hadn’t meant to cause trouble. She had simply answered the question honestly, the way she had always been taught to do. Seeing her discomfort, Amber’s amusement faded.

She leaned forward slightly.

Her voice softened, not in tone, but in intent.

“You need to toughen up, Meadow,” she said steadily. “People will laugh at you sometimes. Or with you. Whichever it is, you must

never cower. You must keep your grace.”

Her gaze sharpened.

“Ethan is a powerful Alpha. His Luna must be his equal.”

The words settled heavily in the room.

Meadow lifted her chin and met Amber’s eyes.

Meadow nodded.

Not in fear.

In understanding.

She was not weak.

She was just gentle.

And sometimes gentleness was mistaken for fragility.

But she knew who she was. The girl who endured without bitterness. The woman who loved without conditions. The heart that bent

but did not break.

That fire still lived inside her, the same one Amber had seen during the tea party.

“I’m sure you will learn,” Amber added calmly.

Ashley’s fingers tightened around her napkin.

And that single sentence did not sit well with her at all.