Filed to story: When the Moon Hatched Book
“Because I was mourning someone I loved very much. I discovered my pah had done something unforgivable, and I took her revenge because I thought she no longer could. Now I have regrets.”
“What was … h-her name?”
“Elluin,” he murmurs, and pulls
—yanking the pin free. I open my mouth in a silent scream, certain he just siphoned half my skeleton through the tiny hole.
Fucking. Ouch.
I spin, gaze dropping to the bloody thing pinched between us, Kaan studying the length, perhaps checking to make sure it didn’t snap on its way out—that name echoing in my mind with the blaring throbs of pain still rioting through me.
Elluin …
I swish some water into my wound while he dunks the pin, running his finger up and down the length.
My gaze narrows on his amulet, absorbing the intricate design—the two dragons embracing in such an intimate way that I wonder if it’s a symbol of their lost love.
A wave of …
something sloshes through me.
Sadness?
Envy?
No, of course not.
“What happened to her?”
His eyes flick to mine. “She died,” he mutters with such finality the words feel like a shiv to the gut.
He storms from the water, pulls on fresh clothes from his pack, and tucks the others away. He stuffs his feet into his boots, grabs his cloak, then charges up the stone stairway toward
Rygun—leaving me to marinate in a blossom of blood and unease.
Drenched, tingling all over, and with a now-itchy shoulder wound, I follow the path Kaan took back up the red-stone stairway, frowning at the tufts of copper grass that have sprouted in the cracks. Pausing to run my hand over the soft blades.
Seeing foliage this color is … strange. In The Fade, anything that manages to sprout from beneath the snow is a vibrant shade of green. And though I like it, I like this better.
Looks sturdy. Harder to kill.
Maybe if I lived here, I’d actually be able to keep some form of vegetation alive.
Something smooth and round catches my eye, my gaze sliding to a dark, ruddy Sabersythe scale half the size of my hand, resting amongst the grass. Probably Rygun’s, perhaps flicked from a leg during one of his previous sheds.
It’s here. On this step. And I’m entirely unsupervised.
Maybe I’m not so cursed after all?
I grab it, cutting a glance at the top of the stairs while using my fingers to wedge the scale down between my wrists, hiding it from view, my heart thumping so loud I’m half convinced every pair of ears in the jungle can hear it.
I pull a steadying breath, victory bursting through my veins with such potency I almost do a dance.
Nothing to see here.
A rumbling sound has my gaze whipping skyward to the dense clouds gathering overhead.
My brows pull together.
I’ve heard it rains here where the air is well above freezing, these mountainous areas a lush spawning ground for drenching storms. All I know is the slice of sleet and the soft, gentle fall of snow …
The pale clouds bulge and swell, and I shiver despite the sticky heat, an electric current caught in the air I can’t seem to shake.
I crest the rise just in time to watch Rygun leap over the edge of the massive grassy plateau, his barbed tail the last thing to disappear—the entire mountain seeming to shift with his displacement.
There’s a clamorous roar, the thud-ump of his wings, and then he’s scooping skyward.
Kaan stalks toward the edge with something round and wiggly caught in his fist, scowling as he watches the beast carve off through the gorge and disappear from sight.
“Where’s he going?” I ask, moving closer, weighing my chances of reaching the male in time to shove him off the cliff.
“Like you,” Kaan mutters, waving the shiny black bug at me, “Rygun is allergic to help.”
I frown, eyeing the creature, its spindly legs waggling, clawlike pincers protruding from what I suppose is its face nipping at the air. “What’s that?”
“A tick I found nudged up under Rygun’s armpit where his scales are still hardening from his last shed.” He flicks the thing at his feet, crushing it with the heel of his boot. It pops, purple innards splatting across the grass. “If left unattended, they release a toxin that can turn a dragon rabid.” He cuts me a hard look shaded by thick lashes and the darkening sky. “There is no cure for an animal intent on torching cities and slaying everything in its path except a swift and merciful death.”
My blood chills.
Torching cities …
Slaying everything …
Swift and merciful death …
None of it stacks up for a king who apparently condones that from his beast. At least according to rumors.
Confusion wrestles through me, my gaze dropping to the purple splat on the ground.
“Come.” Kaan hefts a saddlebag over his shoulder, wrapping his arms around another and heading toward a path etched through the dense foliage ahead. “If you want food, that is,” he tosses back at me. “Can’t escape until you’ve eaten. You’ll pass out and wake up right back where you started.”
He’s got a point.
Sighing, I follow his lead, the ropes around my wrists now swollen with moisture. “I think you accidentally tied this too tight,” I say, looking left to right. Trying to trace the chirping sounds that keep scratching through the air—like somebody’s dragging sticks up and down many ribbed, hollow logs.
“I assure you,” he says, kicking a fallen branch off the track like it personally offends him, “that was no accident.”
“If my hands fall off, so will my iron cuffs, and then I’ll call upon Clode to suffocate you in your sleep.”
“Such pretty promises,” he muses, his tone so dry it could wick all the moisture from my body.
The path opens to another plateau, though this one supports a small stone dwelling that looks like it grew straight from the ground. It’s got two levels, bearing oddly shaped windows not round or square but somewhere in the middle. The dwelling is crooked one way at the bottom, the other way on the second floor, the roof peaked. The walls are knobbled in places and dipped in others, like little thumbs pressed them into place.
I pause, transfixed by it, a smile catching the corner of my mouth.
It’s like a youngling drew the building on a piece of parchment, then peeled it off and whispered life into its walls, giving it the strength and substance to stand.
This south wall boasts a makeshift trellis of crisscrossed branches clothed in a vine heavy with fat purple molliefruit, their scent zesting the warm air. Beneath it are rows of raised garden beds, each bearing a flush of frilly vegetables, some of which appear to have gone to seed …
My gaze lifts, sweeping over the structure, unable to shake the feeling that this place isn’t attended as much as it once was despite the warm sensation that fills my chest just looking at it.
I wonder what song it sings, picturing it a deep, rumbling, happy one. More content than a regular slab of stone. I wonder if Clode twirls past its rounded edges, sipping from bits of its serenity.
Most of all, I wonder why just looking at it makes the backs of my eyes sting—blisters of emotion I pop faster than Kaan popped that tick.
He moves between the garden beds, drops his laden bags on the ground, then grips a lush tuft of vegetation around the neck. He rips a canit root from the heaving dirt, its squiggly length dusted in rust-colored soil that falls back to the ground as he shakes it off, then thumps it against my chest.
Frowning, I curl my arms around the vegetable, cradling it while he repeats the process, over and over, adding to the growing pile until I can hardly see over the top of it.
“Are you cooking Rygun vegetable soup?” I mutter, wondering how I’m expected to see where I’m walking with my arms packed so full.
“I’m making enough so we don’t have to stop at any villages before we reach Dhomm,” he tells me, dumping something that’s particularly hard to balance upon the pile and almost undoing me. “I’d prefer not to be seen with you if I can avoid it.”
Fuck you too, Kaan Vaegor.