Filed to story: When the Moon Hatched Book
That gong continues to beat, harder and harder, until the entire arena is a swirl of pulsing wind and sand.
I continue to laugh in Hock’s face, even as he raises his other hand—
A shadow eclipses the sun.
A roar cleaves the air.
Hock tips his head to the sky, his hand still set to strike me as a Sabersythe soars into view, dragging its monstrous claw through the crisscross of skull-laden ropes and ripping them skyward.
Skulls rain, pelting the sand like mini moonfalls.
Folk scream, but my pulse screams louder.
I’m certain I’m seeing things as Rygun drops upon the crater’s lip with a ground-shuddering thump.
As Kaan uses Rygun’s ropes to propel himself down into the dip, shirtless but for his own m?lmr hanging around his neck, his beautiful face ripped with the wrath of a million maddened men.
I’m certain I’m seeing things as Kaan’s boots thump upon the ground. As he crunches his hands into fists, stalking toward me with footfalls that seem to shake the world while his lips shape words I recognize, the tendons in his neck straining as he wrestles with Bulder’s dialect.
I’m certain I’m seeing things as the crater begins to shake, a slash of relief almost severing me in two despite the massive crack weaving across the ground. Despite the way those ember eyes are locked on me—scarcely dressed, sprawled across the sand beneath another male intent on claiming the right to bind with me …
Probably not a good time to commend him on his hunting skills, but damn—
it’s tempting.
Kaan dominates the crater, each long stride hailed by another shake of the ground, his body a tower of rippling brawn dappled with sweat that glistens in the sun, his scars pale against the rusty surrounds.
His hair is pulled back, sooty brows pinched above his savage stare that clings to me. That casts a cord between my ribs, down into the depths of my icy internal lake where it snags something heavy and thrashing that I can’t quite glimpse.
I begin to tremble, my teeth clanking together so hard I’m surprised they don’t shatter. I blame it on the fact that my skull is probably on the verge of cracking. It’s certainly not something deeper. I’m not shaking like an egg threatening to hatch from this overwhelming surge of relief now packing my chest full. Relief that he’s here. With me.
That—
It’s definitely not that.
Every other clan member aside from Hock smacks their fists to their chests four times, the thumping clamor filling the crater with a drone of respect. Kaan does it once—a vision of ruin and rage.
His gaze shifts to the male still straddling me, his eyes blazing so full of flames I should be scared.
Frightened …
I’m not.
“Dagh ata te roskr nei.
Ueh!” His dense, gravelly voice carries the foreign words with such carnal ferocity I feel each syllable abrade my pebbling skin. He smacks his fist against his chest again, this time splaying his hand, dragging his nails diagonally down his torso. Four distinct scratch marks bloom—risen and angry. “Gagh de mi dat nan ta
… aght?ma.”
The words cut like blades, making me wince. I don’t have to understand the language to know the King is … well …
Pissed.
Hock rises—Kaan’s match in size. “Agath aygh te nei dahl Tookah atah.
Agath dein
… vah!
Lui te hah m?t tuin.” He repeats Kaan’s motion, scratching his own skin, then again with his other hand, creating a welted
X upon his heaving chest.
Kaan snarls. “Heil deg
Zaran dah ta r?idi. Heil deg dah ta r?idi!”
Hock spits on the ground, repeats the clawing motion, then charges.
Kaan mimics—like two great mountains merging toward each other.
Clashing.
I feel the motion like a boulder lobbed at my ribs.
Heads pressed together, clenched hands firmly cast at their sides, they snarl.
Such violent intimacy in their almost-embrace that I’m certain the energy they’re exuding has the power to cleave another crevice in the ground.
Saiza is suddenly at my side with another female, both scooping me up, threading my arms around their necks and dragging me toward the tent.
“Whas being sssaid?” I slur past my clanking teeth, trying to blink away the haze beginning to cloud my vision.
“Hock is claiming the victory over your battle, despite the fact that you did not submit,” Saiza says as I’m carried past the S?l now making her way to Hock and Kaan in long, hip-rolling strides. “Kaan is declaring you are not free to be claimed by anyone. That you were not raised in our ways and are not accustomed to such traditions. He is demanding the trial be void. As Hock’s roskr—his greater, in your tongue—he is demanding Hock accept his great victory over Zaran and step out of the battle ring to add a dot to his r?idi. Hock, in turn, is challenging the roskr order and wants to battle Kaan. If he wins, he will earn many more dots for his r?idi.”
My heart dives, the thought of Kaan battling Hock to the death spawning something spiky and uncomfortable in my chest.
“Kaan isss King of The Burn,” I force out. “Hock would dare to challenge the crrrown?”
“Your crowns mean little here. We claim part of no kingdom. Only the r?idi matters. We only pound chest four times for the roskr-?h. The greatest.
“
My brows collide, and I look over my shoulder at the snarling males still spitting words at each other. “If Kaan is ssstrongest, why is he not Oah?”
“He was, until his pah died,” Saiza whispers when we reach the tent. “He offered uith-roskr—second greatest—the bones of our ancestral Oahs. Oah Knok has been a worthy Oah.”
My gaze sways to Oah Knok as I’m helped onto the dais before I’m spun and settled upon the rug, the hurt on my temple dabbed at with something cold and damp.
I sway, the scene before me splitting, converging.
Splitting again.
Rygun reigns over the arena from his lofty perch on the edge, his mammoth size casting half the crater in shadow. Set amongst that fearsome pronged face, his inky eyes trace Kaan’s every move with crushing intensity—not helped by the fact that he multiplies every time the world splits.
I feel the opposite.
There’s not one single part of me that wants to watch this fight unfold. Just a slumber ago, I wouldn’t have batted a lash at watching Kaan Vaegor have his head sawn off in an arena. Instead, I would’ve cheered.
Now, even the thought makes me want to vomit.
I don’t understand it. Don’t want to understand it.
Don’t want to watch.
“Well,” I rasp, bringing a shaking hand up to feel the hurt on my head, frowning when my fingers come away bloody, “while they’re occupied, howww ’bout I pretend to be dead and yyyou two throw me back in the river?”
“It is not that simple, I’m afraid.”
That’s not the right attitude to have.
“The Fate Herder’sss gone,” I slur, looking around my wobbly surroundings, not seeing it anywhere. “I think it can be that sssimple if we believe hard enough.”
She swipes some of the blood from my chest. “I do not think it is gone; I think it is just choosing not to be seen.”