Filed to story: When the Moon Hatched Book
How Mah survived this for over a hundred phases, I’ll never know, but perhaps I do understand why it took her so long to bring Haedeon into this world.
Then me.
Perhaps I understand why she was crying in the snow so many phases ago, when my world was small and my heart felt full and whole.
I barely have the energy to breathe, let alone eat. Last cycle, I certainly didn’t have the energy to help with the preparations for the committal. To stand on my own two feet while N?thae and Akkeri blew plumes of aqua flame on Mah’s and Pah’s pyres—committing their bodies back to the elements. Instead, I sat in Haedeon’s chair and watched them burn, my heart so raw from cycles of clutching them close that I almost wheeled myself into the fire, too.
Then came Haedeon’s turn.
Rather than blow flames onto his body, Allume scooped him up, tilled her wings, then tipped her head to the sky and lifted off the ground with my brother clutched against her. She soared unsteadily toward the deep dark where her ancestors rest, then curled into a ball, tucked Haedeon beneath her gammy wing, and solidified before my eyes—giving herself to death rather than live an eternal life without the one we both loved so much.
Or perhaps she just knew how much he hated being alone.
Everyone else went inside to feast in honor of my lost ones while I lay in the snow and sang to Haedeon’s moon, tracing the outline of that small, misshapen wing. Until Sl?tra came, settled beside me, and curled her tail into a fluffy nest I fell asleep within.
I haven’t woken from this terror yet.
I’m losing hope that I ever will.
Mah and Pah’s aides say I have very few options. That the folk of Arithia won’t accept a queen so weakened by the Aether Stone unless I’m bound with someone who can wield more than two elemental songs. And even so, I’m not yet old enough to rule.
There’s to be a meeting in Bothaim where my fate will be decided by the Tri-Council. Of course, I can’t attend and speak for myself because princesses are to remain mute and veiled in public until their binding ceremony—something Mah and Pah never enforced … But they’re not here anymore.
It’s just me, and I’m certain the sky is falling.
The wisps of cloud burn off as we coast closer to the sun, Rygun’s head stretched toward it like a hunter stalking his prey. I decide that’s not far from the truth, considering the Sabersythe spawning grounds sit directly beneath the gigantic ball of fire.
I tug the hood of Kaan’s cloak down, tucking deep into its shady hollow to avoid the sun’s harsh rays. Entombed in his molten musk, I find a smooth, grounding sort of comfort that … does things to me. Makes me picture sweaty, snarling warriors scorched beneath this overbearing blaze, a blood-heating smell that muddies my mind and makes me want to slap myself.
Hard.
He may have saved me from the coliseum and had my back mended, but he’s still a tyrant. Based on the way he stuffed his finger in my wound and made me scream, I’d say he has the same brutal streak as his kin. Probably worse, knowing my luck.
He wants me for something, I just have to work out what.
Bottom line: I can’t let him take me to Dhomm. Something low in my gut tells me it’ll swallow me whole.
The F?ur du Ath believe I’m dead. The Fade King and his Guild of Nobles believe I’m dead—presumably. I just have to find a way to escape Kaan so I’m free to hunt Rekk Zharos, then slice and dice him for murdering Essi and whipping my back to shreds.
Vengeance crackles through my veins, making the tips of my fingers itch. A shiver rakes up my spine, and I use the sharp of my thumbnail to scratch at the skin on the side of another—
Rygun coasts to the left, tipping me into Kaan’s arm, usurping me from my spot between his legs. I clear my throat, shuffling back into place, his powerful body a mountain stacked around me. Like I’m a fall of snow tucked between his crevices.
“There’s a sun-veil in the hood,” he rumbles, his accent so thick it’s like it was ripped from the Creators’ mouths, not tumbled by the tides of time like so many of those who live in Gore.
So unlike mine—forged in dark places where words were spat, hissed, and shrieked. Where the only softness belonged to the tight embrace of somebody who no longer exists.
“If you roll it down, you’ll be able to look around while we fly and better anticipate Rygun’s motions.”
The cut of his tone implies everything he’s not saying. That I won’t almost plummet to death every time Rygun banks or hits a current of air that forces him to dodge, dip, or sway.
Tentatively, I loosen my hold on the strap and reach up, frowning as I blindly pinch and pull at the hood’s hem, finding buttons I’m able to wedge free and release a roll of fabric that falls before my face.
Huh.
I lift my chin and dare a glance around, the material a fine sheen that casts me in a mask of shade and even allows me to look almost directly at the sun without fear of going blind.
I take in the vast expanse of our surroundings through widening eyes.
The rippling stretch of sand has given way to sun-scorched dirt torn through with a ribbon of bright-blue silk that I suspect is a large body of—
“There’s the River Ahgt,” Kaan announces as I marvel at its wide, interloping weaves. The way it sparkles in the light.
It threads as far as the eye can see, stretching for the sun, back toward the darkening sky in the south—something I confirm by peeking beneath Kaan’s arm. Tall, lanky trees cling to the rusty, sun-crusted banks, the tips of their numerous branches boasting blades of orange foliage that look sharp enough to slice. I even spot the odd golden wormlike creature slithering through the dirt, leaving a wiggly trail.
I look to the right, a few tendrils of the aurora still glinting over the horizon, though mostly it’s now out of sight.
Guess we’ll find somewhere to stop for slumber soon.
I’m just looking at the river again, fawning at the way the water appears to flow so freely between the chapped plains, when I notice Kaan put a little pressure on the left tug-rope.
Rygun’s right wing begins to rise.
Anticipating the canting motion, I grip the strap and lean into the sway, finding the movement almost …
natural, this time managing to keep my seat between Kaan’s powerful thighs.
The sun now beats upon the right side of our bodies, warming my cloak as we’re carried toward a lofty band of auburn mountains stretched far and wide, north to south, emerging from the distant haze of dust torn up by the wind.
“Where are we going?”
“There,” Kaan says, pointing toward a distinct dip in the mammoth range, which expands a little more with each thud-ump of Rygun’s wings.
Scorched earth gives way to lush, russet jungle, the likes of which I’ve only seen in paintings on shop walls in Gore, the heavily vegetated mountains before us so large and vast they make Rygun feel like a pinprick in comparison.
The only ranges I’ve ever seen have been sheer and sharp, but these are the opposite. Like somebody ladled scoops of stone, then dumped them on each other in big mounded heaps, clouds beginning to gather around their heads like puffs of gray hair.
Rygun banks, aiming for a crevice, its soaring, jagged edges severed by the rushing river far below.
“Hold on,” Kaan growls, gathering both tug-ropes in one hand, threading the other arm around my waist. My spine stiffens as he tips his body forward, forcing me to do the same—wedging me between himself and the hard-packed saddle, pitching my pulse into a bellowing roar.
“Why are you not steering?”
“Because he knows where to go,” Kaan says upon the left side of my hood.
Huh?
A tightening of his dense body is the only warning I get before we pitch sideways, the motion so rapid my innards corkscrew the opposite direction. They finally manage to catch up, though just as they do, Rygun tips the other way. Back again, and again, and again, skimming past sheer, rust-colored cliffs the river appears to have worn its path between, like it’s reaching for something deep. Perhaps the other side.
Perhaps if it gets there, the world will split in two.
Another tip, Kaan’s inhale crushing his body so close to mine that I feel him everywhere.
The way he flexes as he prepares for the next maneuver. The way his arm tightens around my waist, muscles bulging, clinging to me like I’m going to somehow slip free and plunge to my doom.
Rygun battles the gorge with such precision I realize he’s done this many times—tucking his wings when the pathway becomes narrow, dropping momentarily before throwing them out again.
We come to a dead end, water pouring down the rounded mountainscape above in wide, gushing steps, gathering in a large basin at its foot. The teal pool glimmers like a gemstone beneath diagonal beams of sun, the northern side cast in a deep pocket of eternal shade.
Rygun swoops almost low enough to drag his tail through the water, scooping skyward—Kaan’s tensing body and my firm grip on the strap the only things stopping me from ripping off the saddle, skimming down the length of the beast and plummeting into the pool.
A smattering of water pelts my cloak as we shoot up, then level so fast a yelp slips up my throat. Rygun thrashes his wings, lowering us gently …
then all at once. We thud upon the ground so hard my canine pierces my bottom lip.
The taste of copper fills my mouth.
Kaan pulls back, ripping me with him. He flips the hood, tilting my head until I’m staring straight up at the underside of his scruff-covered chin.
He clicks his tongue, the rough pad of his thumb dragging across my bottom lip with such tenderness every muscle in my body poises for a few rigid moments before my brain has a chance to recalibrate.
Tyrant King.
My captor.