When the Moon Hatched (Moonfall, #1)

by Sarah A. Parker

Ignos was a glutton for Clode. The God of Fire feasted on her. Consumed her. Loved her so much he could not breathe without her.

Many beings filled all corners of the world, but none the Creators were more proud of than the great winged beasts that lorded over the sky. The dragons.

But as castles grew taller than mountains, and as kings and queens decorated their crowns with bigger, sparklier jewels, so, too, did folk learn how to shed dragon blood. For many Moonplumes, Moltenmaws, and Sabersythes . . . their eternal lives were slashed. The Creators did not expect their beloved beasts to sail skyward upon their end. For many of them to plant themselves just beyond gravity’s grip, curl into balls and calcify, littering the sky with tombstones. With moons.

Until one aurora rise, for the first time in more than five million phases . . . Another moon fell.

immediately dismissing me as a lesser. A null. Someone who doesn’t hear any of the four elemental songs.

Preparation is my armor. Don it or die.

A boastful token of their ability to hear the different elemental songs: Red for Ignos. Blue for Rayne. Brown for Bulder. Clear for Clode.

So close I’m struck with a smoky musk pinched with the smell of freshly split stone, softened with notes of something buttery.

I swallow the words instead. Something that never feels good, no matter how often I do it.

Fíur du Ath and our sympathizing, albeit bloody, dealings.

“Do you know ‘Ballad of the Fallen Moon’?”

a strand of memory wafting through the back of my mind. Stripped of emotion. Beauty. Pain. The ghost of something I can scarcely grasp, its corpse anchored in my icy nether. The place inside me that’s vast like the Ergor Plains I once walked alone, blotches of somebody else’s blood frosted to the rags that clung to my skeletal body.

The harder you care, the more fragile everything seems. Easier to just . . . Not.

Survival’s funny. Some wear it like a whisper, others like a scream. Mine’s a scorched skeleton of flame-forged rage that keeps me upright. Keeps me moving forward.

“Glei te ah no veirie,”

Coaxing Clode to siphon almost every wisp of air from Tarik’s lungs. She giggles.

You know who we are, of course. The Fíur du Ath.” From the Ashes.

His now-bleeding eyes take in the lobe of my ear. The one supposed to be pierced with a transparent bead to signify my ability to hear Clode’s ever-changing, riotous song. Way I see it, it would only serve to single me out as a threat to The Fade’s militant society.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Being an Elding Blade, I kill. Nothing more.

Picturing myself as a dragon, wings outstretched, I tip and churn through the puffy pink clouds, so far above the world that all I hear is my heartbeat and the heavy thump of my imaginary wings. All I feel is the flexing strength of my body. Untethered. Free.

Sadness is like stones that stack inside you, making it harder to move. Ignorance is my self-preservation tonic, and I’ll swear by it until I die.

“Rekk’s Moonplume is in the city hutch.”

“Who’s he hunting?”

“Us.”

“He’s been hired by the Crown, and he’s here to put a pin in our rebellion. To stop us from draining the kingdom of its fresh-faced conscripts.”

Well, he needs to die.

“I’ll take care ...

I think she saw me, surrounded by the mulched bodies of freshly slain folk who’d come to hunt me down, and decided broken things make the sharpest weapons . . . so long as you fetter them to yourself so they don’t fly away.

“Always so dramatic, Raeve. Truly, I’ve never met someone with so much battle in their blood.”

I click my tongue, trying to imagine a world where someone would deign to help another without expecting something in return. Failing.

You chose to live. Sure, it’s no longer on your terms . . . At least you’re still breathing.

“My life has never been on my terms.”

“And I refuse to accept this as living.”

Dragonflame doesn’t abide by the rules of nature. Ignos’s language can’t deter it from blistering skin. Melting flesh and bone. Destroying cities. Only a Daga-mórrk can wield dragonflame—one so bonded with their dragon they can harness its strength and fire. Though the connection is more myth than reality.

There’s something poetic about looking up and seeing that which has passed. A soft launch into grief for those who linger below.

I seek out the small silver moon of an adolescent Moonplume that’s drawn my eye since I first looked upon the tombstone-laden sky, pulling my lungs full of crisp air, a true, untarnished smile stretching across my face . . . Many call that particular moon Hae’s Perch.

I don’t want to look at my favorite moon and think of things that hurt. I want to look at that small Moonplume and imagine it had a beautiful life full of happy things that make your heart heavy with love. Perhaps that makes me a coward, but I have to pinch my smiles from somewhere. And that moon . . . It never fails to give me exactly that. A smile.

I don’t want her to tell me she’s worried. That she cares. I don’t want to say those same words back to her. The folk I care about die.

Loving that moon feels safe. Moonfalls are so rare it’ll likely always be there, accepting my quiet adoration. Loving Essi . . . it makes me feel like I’m handling something fragile that’ll break apart in my hands if I tighten my grip even the slightest bit.

Fallon once told me that as a youngling, she used to lie on her back and wish upon the moons—wishes that would sometimes come true. Magic, she called it.

I know it wasn’t her. That it’s impossible. That I’m going mad—and have been for phases. Still. Those eyes. That scent. That voice—

I know too well how malignant the roots of love can be. I’ve suffered from the same ailment for over an eon, and I’ll continue suffering until the dae I die.

“I’m sorry, Essi.” I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you safe. That I never said I love you before you were dying in my arms. I’m sorry I wasn’t the family you deserved.

A bigger part of me that’s burning right alongside her. And that part . . . It’s tired. Lonely. Lost. Sad. More broken than I’ll ever admit. That part of me just wants to stop and never start again.

She rips the iron ring off her finger, opening herself to the Creators. To songs she’s studied from below the crust of her icy lake whenever they howl, squeal, or shriek down from above.

A ruthless smile spreads across The Other’s face—no longer reminiscent of her fiercely beautiful host. Now sharp and savage. Monstrous.