Filed to story: When the Moon Hatched Book
I reach into my pocket and slip on my ring.
The racket banging against my eardrums snips off, leaving only the organic sounds of Clode squealing past corners without her manic laughter or slicing song.
I crack my neck from side to side, rolling my shoulders—ever thankful for iron’s nulling properties. I can tune her out on my own if I concentrate, but it takes effort, and my guard drops while I sleep. Clode’s great and all, but not when you’re jostled awake by a midslumber squeal. And she’s painfully loud.
Plug-fingers-in-my-ears loud, though I wouldn’t dare.
Don’t want to get on her bad side.
It’s said the louder one hears the elemental songs, the greater the connection, the more power one can derive from learning their language and speaking their words. A blessing and a curse when it comes to the wild Air Goddess, since her squeals can be sharp enough to slit skin. Nothing worse than feeling like your brain’s being filleted into fluffy segments.
I tuck my veil back into place, hiding the bottom half of my face as I move to the wind tunnel’s entrance and peek out, looking left and right along the thin path etched into the wall like a groove. Making sure my cloaked observer hasn’t shown up to play catch the iron blade between your ribs.
Not seeing him or anyone else, I step farther forward, glancing down toward the Ditch far below. Eddies of snow tangle with clusters of luminous sowmoths, but I see no other movement, nor can I see anybody on the stair path beneath me. Nor the one below that.
I look across the massive cleft to the wall’s parallel half, seeing nobody on the north side, nor on the nearby skybridges that stretch between both.
An appreciated surprise.
I step away from the edge and turn, my footsteps echoing as I walk back to Tarik’s corpse still hanging from his hand pinned to the wall, his head flopped to the side. I extract my blade from the stone, and his body heaps into a steaming puddle of red.
Looking at my gown, I click my tongue at the spurts of blood deepening the shade in places. I’d hoped for a clean job this time. Every time.
Never happens.
I unbutton the overlay on my skirt, rip the top layer from my bodice, and pull the tarnished fabric free, revealing the perfect replica beneath—balling the spoiled layer into a parcel I toss down the rubbish chute that’s tunneled into the wall. One of many chutes scattered around the city, which delve past ground level, past a few levels of the Undercity, and spew out into the lair of a full-grown velvet trogg that feasts on Gore’s trash.
I tip my head to the side, gauging the distance between Tarik and the chute, deciding it’s probably a little high for me to heft him into it. Better just to shove him out the hole in the wall for the many Shade-born predators to pick at.
Releasing a sigh, I look at his limp body, picturing a world without those who like to gobble up shiny things then shit them out broken. “Imagine,” I mutter, crouching to wipe my blades on his pants before I tuck them away.
Just …
imagine.
I shake my head, grip Tarik around the ankles, and heave his weight with all the strength of my burning thighs, thankful we got almost all the way to the end before he pounced. As I drag him toward the drop, the wind sweeps through the tunnel so hard I’m certain it gives him a shove, and I smile.
Clode’s such a crazy, spiteful bitch.
I love her.
I maneuver Tarik until he’s so close to the edge his arm is dangling, then wipe my hands on his tunic, crouch behind him, and put all my weight into pushing him over, catching myself on the stone as he slips from my grasp. Leaning forward, I watch him plummet toward the wall’s rocky, sawtooth base far below …
He impales upon a slice of stone that cuts all the way through his abdomen, and I find myself wishing I’d kept him alive so he could experience it.
Damn.
Missed opportunity.
Standing, I use the edge of my boot to scrape the bloody smear of snow into a pile and kick it off the side.
Pocketing Tarik’s hand, I saunter down the wind tunnel, pausing just before the entrance, my stare catching on a bit of parchment stuck to the wall.
I step closer, eyes narrowing on the script.
Stealing children?
Exploiting their gifts for our own political gain?
“What a load of spangle shit.”
And The Crown’s no longer threatening those who engage with us, but rather dangling a bountiful lure impossible to turn down. Especially for those who are homeless, working in the mines, getting by on a few pouches of bloodstone per phase.
This changes things …
Snarling, I rip the bullshit parchment free and scrunch it into a ball, just stalking around the corner when I slam into something hard. A firm hand wraps around my wrist, steadying me. The same wrist that’s attached to the hand currently clawed around the balled-up bit of parchment offering a hefty reward for, well …
Me.
I look up in time for a blow of wind to push back the hood of the mysterious male from the Hungry Hollow.
My heart plummets, breath loosens. For the first time since Fallon taught me speech, I’m lost for words.
He’s harshly chiseled, raw … fiercely beautiful. My lungs pull full of his scent, so deep and drugging, like smelted stone topped with a ladle of cream.
I hold the breath hostage, taking him in, admiring his black hair that falls just past his shoulders. It’s half pulled back off his face that’s partially shadowed by a few loose strands failing to soften his regard, his piercing eyes the rich molten color of fired wood.
His brows are thick, the lower half of his face shaded by a dark beard that adds a rugged texture to his already robust appearance. Like he belongs in one of the renown warrior clans that took root amongst the Boltanic Plains millions of phases ago, wielding an ax and a bloodlusting roar.
His gaze rips from mine, bouncing around our surroundings, searching every shadowed dip. I notice the tapered tip of his right ear is punched through with a small black cuff that encases part of the shell, but no beads.
He’s showcasing as a null—minus the clip—but I know better than to assume he doesn’t hear any of the elemental songs. Especially given the immense energy rolling off him, shoving against me. Making me feel as if he’s so much bigger than the space he’s currently inhabiting. Which is a lot, being a head and a half taller than me, his broad chest and shoulders reminding me of a Sabersythe. The bold, muscular sort of build often found in those with strong roots to The Burn—the hot, ever-sunny northern kingdom.
His condemning stare lands on me again, and it’s like a swift kick to the ribs. Winding.
Chest-deflating.
He’s looking at me like I just shoved a dead elemental off the wall. Or maybe I’m imagining things. I’m certain there was nobody else around …
The line between his brows deepens. “Are you okay?”
His dense voice skims my heart like flint scoured across stone, leaving a residue of sparks that crackle through my icy bloodstream in the strangest way.
Am I …
okay?
I mirror his frown. “Are you mad?”
“Possibly,” he rumbles, voice like a spill of warm, rolling rocks.
A flake of snow lands atop my forehead, and my breath hitches as he lifts his spare hand, bringing it toward my face. Like perhaps he’s going to sweep the flake away. I catch myself falling into the motion before I realize he’s reaching for my veil.
The air between us turns stiff and sterile. Even Clode stops her whipping stir.
“I wouldn’t,” I purr, pressing a small iron dagger to his crotch—the dagger always notched just up my sleeve for times such as this.
His brow bumps up. “Quick hands.”
“It’s iron.”
“I can smell that,” he growls, his voice thick with the rich, exotic accent of northerners. “Name. Now. And not the fake one you gave to whoever hired you at the Hungry Hollow.”
Thorough.
Interesting.
I lean more pressure into my little iron blade that suddenly feels vastly inadequate against everything it’s pressed against, though I’m not one to stand down from a challenge. “No. But I’ll serve you your own cock if you don’t let go of my wrist.”
My words are sultry smooth, passed to him like a ballad I’m certain he’s going to appreciate less than the songs I sang all slumber … until the corner of his mouth flicks up the slightest amount.
Surprising me.
He makes a gruff sound, drops my wrist, then steps back, forging a small cleft of space between us that feels like a canyon I’m standing on the edge of—the arches of my feet tingling as a strange flutter takes flight inside my belly.