I could feel Shelly pacing within me, her restlessness mirroring my own. She pushed against the confines of my human form, aching to break free and run until the doubts that plagued me were nothing but whispers lost to the wind. But even she knew there was no outrunning the mantle of responsibility that had been thrust upon me.

"Queen," they called me. "Luna." Reverent titles that came with a price-a price paid in solitude, in sleepless nights, in the ever-present fear of not being enough. ...