Chapter 79. The Healer’s Debt

Lotus’s POV

The Winter Palace is too bright.

The TVs that are rarely watched are now broadcasting the news of what happened over the last few days. Reporters are trying to explain the impossible, but no one seems to know the whole truth. Only bits and pieces of the rumors that have trickled out of the Summer Pack. The Winter Pack ends the war. The Luna who killed a god. The return of peace.

I’d laugh if I wasn’t so tired.

Every corridor I pass echoes with the same things: stretchers rolling toward med bays, healers shouting vitals into headsets, the rhythmic beeping of machines keeping the newly free alive.

The war is over, but the world doesn’t know how to stop bleeding.

Louis is still in and out of consciousness. The monitors in his room flash steady green lines, a quiet reassurance that he’s breathing on his own now. Lennox and Levi hover near his bed like twin shadows, refusing to rest even when ordered.

I can’t blame them. I can’