Filed to story: When the Moon Hatched Book
catkin de nei.”
L?ri’s muscles soften, and her upper lip stops wobbling, nostrils flaring. She blows a cold plume of breath on me, and I give the signal to continue.
“You know how to speak in the southern tongue?” Agni asks, resuming her tedious task.
Still rubbing my hand across L?ri’s snout, I look up. “Not that I’m aware.”
She peers at me. “That’s what you spoke right now. My mah used to be an emissary. She had to be familiar with the language because some folk south of the wall choose only to speak in the southern tongue. Especially in some of the communities south of Arithia.”
Huh.
I hadn’t considered the words that were coming out of my mouth—simply spoke them.
“Did I speak it fluently?”
Agni nods, pausing to dip her etching stick in her tincture again, passing me a gentle smile. “Like you’ve been speaking it for a long while. Have you spent much time in The Shade? That you can remember?”
That you can remember.
My thoughts sink down that coiled staircase beneath Kaan’s sleepsuite, into a cavern pregnant with a luminous, icy tombstone—the weight of which I can suddenly feel beneath my ribs.
Weighing me down.
I let the silence ruminate between us, cracking more ghorsi grass upon my hands to smooth over L?ri’s nose. Agni clears her throat and continues etching her runes, her own lids appearing to grow just as heavy as her patient’s.
Hardly surprising. She’s been working nonstop since she got here almost an entire aurora cycle ago, during which neither of us have slept nor barely even eaten. The entire time, the storm has raged, clapping the sky into luminous shards, rumbling like a caged beast. Like Rayne is overflowing with teeth-gnashing anger—a similar storm churning within the confines of my chest cavity.
But I’m mindful.
Uncharacteristically, painfully patient.
Athud-umping boom rattles the cave. Rattles the very air we breathe as Agni completes the misshapen loop. She lifts her hands, and we both still as the hole’s tattered circumference illuminates—tightening.
New flesh spawning.
“Please be enough,” Agni mutters, etching stick poised as the hole shrinks in nail-biting increments.
“Please
…”
It seals shut.
Agni’s face contorts, like something just stabbed her through the gut.
“Are you oka—“
Her eyes roll into the back of her head, and she slumps sideways, glass shattering with the heavy thump of her head hitting the ground.
Fuck.
I unravel myself and dart around L?ri’s crimping wing to where Agni is bunched in a shuddering heap. “Agni? Shit.” I crouch beside her, heaving her up against my chest.
Her lids flutter open. “I fainted, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” I grind out, brushing my hand across the lump on her forehead. “You need sleep.”
“I need sleep,” she mimics, allowing me to help her all the way to her feet.
“I’ll escort you back to the Stronghold.”
“I’m fine,” she assures, passing me a weak smile before she reaches up and touches the lump, wincing. “This isn’t the first time I’ve come to with an egg on my head.”
I consider telling her about the time I came to with the remnants of Rekk’s finger between my teeth to lighten the mood a smidge, but think better of it.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
She nods, her drab gaze dropping to her spread of tools and tinctures, some shattered, others scattered across the ground. She sighs. “What a Creators-damn mess.”
“I’ll sort it. You go rest.” I kneel to collect the strewn vials, corking some, doing what I can to salvage the spilled contents.
“I’m terribly sorry I can’t work any faster, Raeve …”
“You’re easing her discomfort at the cost of your own health and well-being. Don’t be sorry. Go. Eat. Replenish. Get some rest. I’ll still be here when you return.”
“It’s just …” Frowning, I look up to see her stare scraping across my arms, my legs—tears welling in her eyes. “Anyone who’s been through the process knows how much it hurts, and I understand her suffering must be …
hard for you to endure.”
Her meaning sinks beneath my skin, whisking my pulse into a rapid churn.
I clear my throat, carting a bundle of corked jars to the table we had set up on the far side of the cavern, my gaze caught on my task of putting them back into place. “We don’t need to talk about—“
“To me, you shine far brighter than L?ri …”
I sigh, set my hands on the table, and stare at the wall. In all my known life, I hadn’t met a single folk blessed with Dragonsight. Now in less than sixty rises, I’ve met two.
They’re supposed to be blessedly rare.
“I don’t want the King knowing,” I say, turning to look at her.
“Veya said the same when I brought it up with her. Your secret’s safe with me. I just—“
“And I have no desire to speak of it. None. I don’t need coddling, Agni, though I appreciate the sentiment. All I need is for you to get some rest before you pass out again.”
Her mouth snips shut, cheeks flushing. “Of course.” With a dip of her head, she moves toward the cavern’s mouth, stepping into the misty curtain of rain.
“Creators,” I mutter, shaking my head.
I make for L?ri’s head, her heavy-lidded gaze following my every motion, blinking with a flutter of wispy, pale lashes.
Such a contrast to her dark, fathomless eyes.
I settle before her, doused in the frosty blow of her soft, rumbling exhale. Rubbing my hand back and forth across her rounded nose, I marvel at the unique texture of her skin—like crumpled leather pressed smooth, veined in a web of fine creases.
Her slit nostrils flare, and she whuffs at me, the tasseled tendrils hanging from her jowls fluffing as my hand threads up between her eyes, rubbing. A trilling sound rattles in the back of her throat, and a smile kicks up the corner of my lips—
“What is it you don’t want me finding out, Raeve?”
Though my heart lodges itself on a rib, I keep my features smooth.
Impassive.
Heavy footsteps echo behind me, and every hair on the back of my neck lifts as I realize how close he is, his scent wafting around me like a soothing blanket part of me is desperate to nuzzle into.
Ignoring his question, I reach forward, taking one of L?ri’s tendrils and running it through my fingers, her trilling sounds softening to a high-pitched purr that saws in longer, more languid drags until her breaths turn deep and even.
Slowly, I edge away. Careful.
Quiet.
She doesn’t so much as twitch as I ease to a silent stand, walking free of the rune’s frosty embrace, mindful not to disturb the luminous drawings smudged into the stone.
I make for the cave’s clamorous entrance, Kaan’s thumping footsteps following close behind.