When the Moon Hatched (Moonfall, #1)

by Sarah A. Parker

“Tell me,” I murmur, pointing out the window with my rod, “is that the carter hutch?” “Thinking of going somewhere, Moonbeam?” My head whips around, heart plopping into my guts at the sight of Kaan reclined in the booth—hair pulled back, loose bits hanging around his fiercely beautiful face. He’s dressed in a black leather tunic that fits his frame like a second skin, stitched together with thick thread, the lines accentuating the broad scope of his powerful chest. What little sleeves the garment has are cut off across his wide shoulders, his scarred arms crossed as he watches me from beneath an arched brow. I suck a breath into suddenly parched lungs, filling them with his molten scent that makes my heart rally. “Hmm?” he coaxes, and I realize I’ve been sitting here staring at him, cheeks aflame, dry mouth empty of words, marinating in the stiff waves of tension undulating between us. “I . . .” Creators, it’s like he stole my tongue. Where did Pyrok scurry off to? A big, tipsy buffer between myself and this male would be really nice right now. “I’ve got all slumber,” Kaan rumbles, and I swear his deep, raspy voice was designed by the Creators themselves to disable me. To tamper with my insides, rearrange me into a mindless idiot. “The rest of my life, actually.” Fuck.

“Awful trusting of you.” “I trust my folk, and I’m eighty percent certain you won’t kill me now that I’ve saved your life twice.” I open my eyes, smile gone as I look into his intense ember orbs. “Depends.” “On?” I grip hold of my mead and drag it close to my chest. “Your kingdom may be lush and full of smiling, happy folk, but I doubt you’ve experienced life under your brother’s reign. Are you complicit in the way he snatches children from their mahs at the tender age of nine?” I ask, cocking my head to the side. All the color seeps from his eyes, leaving cold, sooty coals. “A whisper of power and they’re immediately snatched from screaming parents and replaced with a bucket of bloodstone. Conscribed. Carted off to Drelgad where they learn how to speak murdering words, practicing on small, fluffy creatures. Ripping out that delicate part of a youngling’s heart that can never be replaced—turning them into true, tortured monsters.” “Raeve—” “Did you know,” I say, gesturing to the hole I sliced into the shell of my own ear, “that younglings confirmed as a null are held down and clipped? That this becomes a marker for vulturous folk who target them, coaxing them into Undercity battle pits with vacant promises of enough bloodstone to feed their families. Discounted folk otherwise forced to live in the Undercity. Where the air is too thick. Where there is no sun, and every slumber is a gamble on whether or not this is the time that you get woken—immobilized by a hushling squatt...

“I’m not going to kill you, if that’s what you’re waiting for.” The corner of his mouth kicks up again, and it’s like staring into the eye of a storm. So hauntingly beautiful you almost forget you’re in danger. Almost. “I’m honored. Let me know if you change your mind.” Doubtful. I’ve actually decided his death might be one of the greatest losses this world could suffer. Not that I’m going to tell him that, of course. This . . . whatever between us will grow into a ravenous beast unless I starve it to death—I’m certain.

Around him . . . sometimes words just feel inadequate.

“I once knew a female who’d cry when it rained, though she thought I never noticed,” he murmurs against my ear, his dense words battling the torrent of mournful cries like a boom of thunder. “Her name was—” “Elluin.” His arms tighten, my body a pool melding with the stony slabs of his resilient form. “The cuff was a kindness, Moonbeam. There is little need to weaponize yourself here, but it storms. Often. Violently.” Hindsight. My least favorite way to learn.

“Your moon,” I rasp, a small smile picking up the corner of my mouth as a tear slips down my cheek that I’m swift to bat away. “Her name was Slátra,” Kaan says, a rawness to his voice that I’ve never heard before. “I’m yet to find her final shards. You can’t see on this side, but there’s a small crevice around the back of her I still need to fill.”

“Are. You. Familiar with it?” I leave the stripped memory where it belongs. Within. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I snip, whirling around, storming toward the exit. Kaan banks, cutting me off, his leather tunic dusted in a fine layer of frost. My gaze snaps up to meet his fiery glare that’s so at odds with the icy fractals dusting his hair and beard, making it glimmer in the luminous light. “Move.” “See, I think you’re lying.” He pushes forward a step, emitting the immense energy of a mountain-sized beast in his prime. An energy impossible to ignore. “I think you know this moon better than anyone else.” There’s a rumbling within me, from somewhere deep beneath my lake. A hum of acknowledgment I neglect, focusing instead on the anger swelling within my chest like a ball of dragonflame. My foot slides back, upper lip lifting from my canines. “I think this beast cradled you for a hundred phases, breathing life back into your broken body until you both fell from the sky. I think you broke from Slátra’s tombstone like a hatching dragon—” “You’re fucking mad,” I hiss as my back collides with the moon. “Am I?” He arches over me like a rocky overhang, leveling me with a look that sucks all the oxygen from my lungs. “Because I knew a female who died. Tragically. Whose lifeless body was sailed into the sky by the adoring beast at your back with my torn-out heart in her fucking fist,” he rasps, lifting his hand into a claw that he shakes in my face. “Her name was Elluin...

“Who hurt you?” “I do not hurt, King Burn. I harden. And no—your pet flame did not sing to me. Not even a little bit. Otherwise I would’ve sung it up the hall and ordered it to suicide itself in a puddle.” His frown deepens, his hand coming up as if to cup my cheek. Like he wants to touch me but is worried I might slice it off. “Don’t lie to me, Moonbeam. Lie to the world, but please don’t lie to me.” “Stop talking to me like you know me. You don’t. Even if I did fall with your precious moon, I owe you nothing. Elluin is dead.” “Stop.” His word commands. His eyes plead. Both ricochet off my armor like arrows I snatch, lodging them between his ribs. “Saving my life, dragging me away to your big, bright kingdom where everybody fucking loves you is not going to reincarnate her. I’m not yours, and I never will be.”

“Chase death, Elluin Raeve.” A gasp cuts down my throat like a blade—whetted edges goring deep. Elluin Raeve . . . “Spend your life alone, forever wondering why you scream in your sleep. Calling for that very Moonplume I’ve spent the past twenty-three phases piecing back together, hoping it would bring your spirit peace. All because you loved that beast so fucking much,” he utters, shaking my head, “I knew it would break you to know she was scattered all over the world after scavengers raided her impact zone.” “I—” My words catch on the tip of my tongue as he takes my hand and brings it close to his heart, the pad of his thumb running back and forth across the torn skin down the side of my nail. His gaze implores, voice plagued with a sadness too heavy to bear as he says, “Chase death, Moonbeam. And I pray your bloodlust brings you the same sense of peace I feel just knowing you exist.” He plants a kiss on my temple, so swift and light I barely register it until he’s gone. Until he’s storming into the adjacent room where he disappears into the shadows—the ghost of his kiss still a brand upon my pebbling skin. For a moment, I consider chasing him. Asking if Raeve was Elluin’s last name on the off chance I ever want to unveil a past that’ll undoubtedly burn just like the rest of it. I reach up. Touch my temple. Whip my hand away. No.

“All going to plan, I should be back before the Great Flurrt to help raise the platforms.” My gaze snaps to him so fast my head spins. “The miskunn predicted that’ll be in thirty aurora cycles . . .” “Correct.” “You’re leaving for thirty aurora cycles?” “It’s a big kingdom, Veya. I can’t just fluff around here when there’s shit to do. I’ve been south for a while, and the kingdom doesn’t run itself.” “Sounds like a convenient excuse to run away.” He tips his head to the side, eyes narrowing. “You told me to tread carefully or she’ll incinerate herself. This is me treading carefully.” His stare softens a little. “She doesn’t want me around. I’m simply abiding.” “You tossed her a sack of gold, Kaan. She’s probably halfway out the door. It’s only a matter of time before she’s wielded against us.” “Dragon bloodstone,” he corrects, and I groan. “And she’s not halfway out the door. She walked straight past the carter hutch and headed for the western point.” My heart stops, all the blood rushing from my face. Sharp prickles of emotion pierce the backs of my eyes. “She’s still in there,” I whisper past the swelling pip in my throat. Elluin. Kaan nods—just once. “Somewhere.” I swat a tear from my cheek.

I brushed against him—featherlight. It was barely a touch, but it ripped a hole in my perception of the world and bared the guts of a whole new version of existence . . . Bigger. Brighter. Happier. I wanted to stay right there forever, caught on that quiet yet clamorous threshold, my heart pounding so hard and fast I was certain my chest was cracking open. I knew it was wrong. That I was breaking a thousand rules. But how could something so wrong feel so fucking right? He cupped my face with such tenderness it was like he was cradling a dragon’s egg, and I nuzzled his palm. Found so much comfort in it that I wanted to stay right there. Forever. Then he asked me what I wanted, and I told him my truth. One three-letter word that weighed too much, being promised to his kin. You.

I think I’m learning how to exist without shackles and expectations. Without the hurt and the crippling fear of loss that hacks my head from my heart. I think I’m learning what it means to live.

“Are you attending the Great Flurrt celebrations?” Pyrok asks, and I lean forward, getting to work unfolding the rest of the scrunched larks. “I’ll be lifting the platforms, of course.” “I mean the actual festival.” I quirk a brow, sliding him half the pile. “Have I ever?” He still makes no move to help, instead narrowing his eyes on me. “You really think now’s the right time to turn all stubborn prick?” Perfect time, actually. “The last Great Flurrt we spent together was the last time I saw her alive.” I flatten another lark and slap it on the pile. “We spent the slumber together, and the following dae I flew off to help rebuild a village. The next time I saw Elluin, her limp body was being carted into the sky by her mourning dragon,” I growl, slamming another lark on the fucking pile. “So no, the idea of inviting her to the Great Flurrt celebration doesn’t thrill me, nor will I apologize for my reluctance.” “Maybe this time will be different?” I chuckle—low and without humor. “Maybe she’ll fillet my heart in a different direction? Undoubtedly. She’s quite fond of filleting. Quite good at it, too.”

Either way, there’s no one else I’d willingly serve my heart on a platter to—over and over and over again—like a hopeless, lovesick stray begging for a treat.

He’s fire and brimstone. I’m shattered ice. Our collision is steam and destruction, destined to dissipate, but I’ll gladly burn beneath him until the world comes crumbling down.

“I was someone to you,” I whisper. “Someone important.” “Correct.” “Until?” The word is a stab—the sort of offensive motion that comes before my mind catches up to the shift of my surroundings or truly registers the lurking danger. “You bound with another male,” Kaan answers equally fast, and my lungs empty in a shuddered exhale as all the warmth escapes my cheeks. As I try and fail to grapple that prickly reality into a shape smooth enough to swallow. That piece of puzzle feels jagged and abrupt. Ill-fitting. The sort of piece I’ll need to hammer into place. “Would you like to know who?” “No,” I say, my gaze dropping to chase the octimar’s slithering motions, the creature gathering shards. Shuffling them. Over the past who knows how long, I’ve become fondly familiar with the us that existed within the jungle home. With Kaan. You don’t simply scratch an itch with Kaan Vaegor, then throw him away and move on to another. You peel back your skin and open your ribs to the male. You tuck him somewhere deep and safe, fight others off with weapons forged from secrets sharp enough to slice, then perish with those secrets clutched close to your chest. There is no way I gave him up for anyone else . . . willingly. And there’s only one answer to that particular riddle. Elluin had secrets just as barbed as my own.

“After all that,” I say, lifting my stare, “you still saved my life.” “Yes.” “Twice.” The right side of his mouth kicks up in a half smile that wrestles with my heartstrings. “Hard to turn down an opportunity to gift you the severed head of a male who made you bleed.” I open my mouth, close it. My next words are rasped past a dry throat. “I don’t understand how you still look at me like you want me.” Silence prevails, tension thickens, his eyes burning embers when he finally says, “Raeve, you could flay me down the middle and I’d still fucking love you.” All the breath shoves from my lungs. Love . . . The word is a quiet death that slips away without so much as a whispered goodbye—an abrupt shove into an eternal loneliness I’ll never deign myself to claw free of. “Such a waste of that big, beautiful heart,” I whisper, and his eyes flare.

“There are two options.” I signal for the octimar to deal a round. Kaan’s gaze follows the creature’s slithering motions before impaling me with another stare that promises everything I want. Everything I don’t. “Which are?” “I leave right now with this pile of gold,” I say, eyeing my impressive stack, “and hire a Moltenmaw from your carter hutch for the foreseeable future.” “So you can hunt the one who turned your back into mincemeat?” “Among other things,” I grit out past clenched teeth. A moment of perfect stillness while he studies me with such precision I’m certain he’s hunting for answers in the flecks of my eyes. “Or?” “We play.” I gesture to the spread laid out between us—already dealt. “A wager.” Kaan looks from me to the octimar, down at the shards, before pulling his chair into place and taking a seat. My brow bumps up as he presents his left palm to the octimar. I follow suit, but with my right. Holding my stare, Kaan says, “If I win, you will answer three questions from me. Truthfully.”

“And if I win, we pretend we’re the ones who existed in that place I suspect you built for us, but only until next aurora rise. At which stage, you’ll owe me a single wish.” Confusion swims in his eyes as the octimar scrawls upon his palm. “What happens once the aurora rises?” “Not important.” “What. Happens?” I sigh, gather my allotted shards off the table and begin sorting them, stare cast on the vibrant illustrations. “I will have a Mindweft smudge you from my brain. Get back to reality. The wish is precautionary.”

“If I’m losing you again, I need to know why,” he implores, his gravelly words shaped more like an apology than an admittance.

“So,” he says, and a chill scuttles up my spine as his upper lip peels back from his canines. “Would you like me to come around and bend you over the table?” He tips his head to the side. “Fuck you right here so we can get it over with? Or would you like to draw it out a bit?” I drop my gaze to the table. He doesn’t get it . .

She looks at me over her shoulder, eyes like glaciers, her soft smile the gleaming slash of a blade that strikes home, bleeding the vulnerable organ that so eagerly pumps for her. Only her. The only beam of light I’ll ever need or want in this world, my love for her sitting like a moon in my chest. Only this moon will never fall, no matter how hard she tugs on it.

A fucking moon could fall and I wouldn’t notice.

“Was this a bad idea?” she rasps. “Yes.” Very. She squeezes her eyes shut, and I can almost feel her mind ticking before she spears me through with that glacier gaze. “We’ll stop. I’m sorry. I wanted to give you—” “The perfect goodbye?” She opens her mouth, closes it, a flash of tender embarrassment staining her beautiful cheeks. I don’t want the perfect goodbye. I want to say hello to Raeve—whoever that is. Whoever’s tucked beneath that hardened exterior, I want to know her. Be around her. Love her. “I’ll go,” she whispers. “I’m sor—” I move, hearing her sharp intake as I throw her into a spin in tune with the song’s crescendo. She stills, eyes twin pools of blazing blue wide enough to swallow me whole. “Backing out of a battle, Prisoner Seventy-Three?” I ask, forcing a fake smile. “I didn’t take you as a quitter, but perhaps I was wrong?” She’s silent for a beat before another smile breaks across her face—so big and bold her dimples pucker again. She smooths her features, clears her throat, then lifts her chin. “Perhaps I don’t want to dance with you after all.” “Lies,” I growl, then spin her back into my arms, crushing her body against mine. Perfectly. Too perfectly. “You want to dance with me, Raeve.” You want to love me, too. But you’re in the way of yourself.

“Your hands know me,” she whispers. “Yes,” I murmur against her hair. “Know you, crave you, worship you.” Her breath hitches. I could go on. Tell her our bodies clash like they were made to tangle for eternity. That I could spread her in the mist and make her body sing. Have her unravel in seconds from a few tender touches coupled with a nuzzled nip to her neck, just below her ear. I’d mulch her enemies with my bare hands to see those dimples. Or at the very least, pave a bloody path for her to slaughter them herself. I was living an eternal solitude, more than prepared to spend forever feasting on her memory, yet here she is, fully intent on erasing me like a stain. Despite knowing—at least in part—what we had. What we were.

“I’ve hunted your spirit for one hundred and twenty-three phases, Raeve. Forgive me if I’m a bit jaded.” “What do you mean by that?” “Exactly what I said,” I grit out, charging through troves of mist. Exactly. Fucking. That.

“Have you ever wished the dead could come back? Even for a fleeting moment so you could feel them in your arms? Tell them how much they meant to you?” “Yes.” For a hundred phases, I looked upon Slátra’s moon and wished for her to bring Elluin back to me. Begged the Creators, too. Just another dimpled smile. Another touch. Another kiss upon my lids. Anything. She releases a shuddered breath. “I’m not back—not really. Much as I’d like to be . . . that.” Her. Elluin. Weaving her fingers through mine, she lifts my hand. I open my eyes. Watch her use our fingers to sketch the shape of the rounded graveyard hanging above us, tracing the slope of the Moonplume’s wings. “This moment is a gift we either waste or treasure, but I’m thankful for it either way. For the time I’ve spent here. I’ve finally learned what it means to live, and I’ll never forget that, Kaan.” Every cell in my body stills as she pulls my hand down again, coaxes it into a cup, and nuzzles her face against it. Just like she’s done so many times before . . . “Never.”

“I have to go, Kaan.” “Bluntly aware of your intentions, Raeve. But as I said before you fell asleep, we need to have a serious conversation first.” I go stone still, swearing internally. I’d hoped he’d forgotten. He lifts his face from my neck, then tilts my head far enough that I’m looking up at him, crushed beneath the sizzle of his earnest stare. “We can either do that now or we can keep pretending for a little while. The choice is yours.” I scowl. “And if I don’t want to have this talk you speak of? Ever?” He shrugs. “Then you’ll have to kill me on your way out of Dhomm. Simple as that. Otherwise, I’ll be on your fucking heels for the rest of eternity until you decide you’re ready to face your past.” I physically recoil, like he jabbed me with a shiv and marginally missed a vital organ. “You’re horrible.” His smile is soft. Gentle, even. “I’m a horrible male that loves you, Raeve. That wants the best for you, even if it’s not the best for me.” The smile falls, his eyes darkening as he pauses—like he’s grappling with the words on his tongue. “There are . . . others who would be affected by your sudden return. One in particular. You need to know the truth.”

“I don’t like this.” “I know you don’t,” he murmurs, reaching up to tuck a tendril of hair behind my clipped ear. “Growing pains are called pains for a reason.” Don’t like that, either. I’ve had enough pain. A bit sick of it, actually. “So what’s it to be, Moonbeam? Are you in a listening mood?” Definitely not.

“You’re not erasing me,” he rumbles, thumbing my clit faster. Faster. “Not this again,” I moan, but the words don’t hold the punch I intend, his fingers working me so expertly my mind has withered into compost. The sort where bad decisions go to sprout. “I’ll cut you a deal,” he spurs with a flash of his canines. “Fuck your deals.” “No, Raeve. Fuck yours,” he growls, pushing another finger in. Stretching me. “I spent over a hundred phases crushed beneath the weight of your death, wrecking myself, trying to shed the hurt from my heart. Do you know how much easier it would’ve been to simply remove you from my mind?” I groan as he pumps me full, my body singing for his ministrations, wet sounds filling the room. “But I didn’t, because I’m not a fucking coward.” I snarl, arching up to snap my teeth at him, flopping back upon the pallet with a pleasure-filled groan as he pushes me full again. “I don’t take you for a coward.” “Stop t-talking. You’re ruining it.” “No.” Another thrust. Another. “You don’t get to treat me like a secret this time,” he grinds out, strumming my clit with his thumb. My pleasure begins to peak, a mighty wave cresting— “I’m not your secret. I’m your truth.”

“What’s the deal, asshole?” “Yield and I’ll fuck you.” He flashes me a sharp smile that’s all canines and feral delight, devastating me with more teasing thumps. My hips buck up to meet each one. “Then I’ll tell you.” “That’s a shitty ruuuu—Creators,” I grind out as he swirls the thick head of his cock around my entrance, dipping in the slightest amount. Pulling out. Swirling again. Maybe it’s not such a shitty rule. “You made the rules last aurora fall when you fucked me at that play table. You had me agree, knowing full well you planned to remove me with a wish up your sleeve to ensure you saw it done.” I really don’t appreciate having a mirror shoved in my face while I’m edging toward an orgasm. “I hate you,” I whimper, lifting my hips to meet the next heavy thump. “No, you don’t, Moonbeam. You love me. You’re just too busy feasting on my heart to notice.” I would flinch from the barbed accusation if I weren’t wound so fucking tight. Another luscious swirl binds me into a mewling knot, his next word snarled. “Yield.” “Fuck you, asshole. I fucking yield.” One hand grasps my thigh, the other threading up around the side of my face and cupping my cheek as he meets my eyes, challenging me—no, begging me—to hold his blazing stare. “Don’t blink, Moonbeam.” Please. “I won’t,” I rasp, all my welling frustration toward him popping into a honeyed cloud of chest-crushing need. Of yearning to meet him on this bridge of connection that’s so frail and uncertain . . . but exquisite. B...

“What did I just agree to?” I pant, melting beneath him. His nip turns into a kiss he plants below my ear. That spot I never knew was so sensitive. “You’re not erasing me—no matter how much our impending conversation hurts.”

“This is so much bigger than us, and you need to soften that heart or you’re going to break someone who’s not attuned to being stabbed through the chest by your reluctance to build connections.” My body stills, every cell standing at stark attention. I’ve been told off before, but never like this. This is . . . This chafes. Ringing with a tune of truth that makes my frayed heartstrings coil and squirm. He grips both sides of my face, another flash of lightning filling the room with white light, his eyes volcanic as he says, “This truth is going to hurt, and you’re going to hate me for it. But there’s someone out there who needs you, and you’re going to change their life even more than you changed mine.”

“So, Raeve. You can swipe at me all you want, pretend you don’t love me as much as I love you. I can take more scars, despite how much they hurt. But you’re not running away.” He plants a kiss on the tip of my nose, the tender motion so at odds with the hard edge of his words. “That’s what you just agreed to.”

“Who was that to?” “Pyrok.” He settles into the seat opposite me, picks up a shard of copperdew melon, and bites into the crispy flesh. “There’s only one Mindweft in Dhomm—I believe you’ve already met him? I’m moving him to a safe house.” My heart stops. “You’re joking.” “Joking?” His eyes flick up, slaying me. “Forgive me, Moonbeam, but there’s nothing funny about it. You have a history of dipping out a side door the moment my back is turned, then winding up dead in the sky.” He offers me a forced smile that stings as much as I imagine mine did earlier. “I’m simply taking precautions.” I make a huffing sound and shove against the backrest, shaking my head. “I liked you better when you were yielding to me.” He shrugs. “And I liked you better when you were drunk with a smile on your face, singing to me, telling me you were only running because you couldn’t bear the thought of watching me die.” I wince. Those drinks should’ve come with big, bold warning signs. “The great news is you’re free to butter me up for eternity with those dimpled smiles, because it’s not your job to keep me safe,” he says, tossing another berry into his mouth. “Now, eat your fruit.”

“Tell me, Rekk Zharos, why have you soiled my ground with your presence?” “I’m hunting someone.” Head cocked to the side, he pulls on his stick again. “The Princess went missing just after her anointing. Her pah sent me to track her down.” I almost laugh. Of course he did. Everybody knows this male has hung off Kyzari like a sticky shadow for many phases, desperate to vie for her affections. Only Tyroth would use that to his advantage in the urge to find his precious daughter, who won’t stop slipping free of the cage he’s kept her in for far too long. “Well,” I mutter, looking at him down the line of my nose, “find comfort in the fact that if she were my daughter, I’d do anything in my power to keep her well the fuck away from you.”

“Look all you want, you won’t find Kyzari here. And you won’t scour my city without wearing iron cuffs, escorted by a barrage of beaded chaperones,” I say, gesturing to my guards lined up at the entrance to the Imperial Stronghold, each of them boasting red, clear, or brown beads in their beards or hair. “I, too, will escort you. I’m sure you understand.” “Of course,” he grits out, flicking his stub on the ground, the embers hissing like a dying serpent before I crush it beneath my heel. “And my saddlebags?” “Will be removed and brought to your temporary quarters where you’ll be under full surveillance every second you sully my kingdom with your putrid presence.” He extends his hands, a sadistic smile curling his lips as Colet approaches with the cuffs and latches them onto his wrists, locking them in place. “Is this an honor you bestow upon all who visit your Stronghold?” I return his smile, exposing the full length of my canines. “Only the ones I fucking loathe.”

“I will have everything arranged for your departure once Líri is healed, and will do everything in my power to keep Rekk in Dhomm until the dae after you leave the city.” A wrestle of words dies on my tongue as a warm sprout of knowledge nestles between my ribs. He’s letting me go rather than clipping my wings and telling me all the valid reasons why I shouldn’t do this. Rather than telling me we’re yet to have our conversation or demand he come with me to assure I don’t remove him from my mind. Rather than shackle me in any way, shape, or form . . . he’s blowing me back to the wind. My chest becomes heavy with the weight of a realization too multifaceted for me to ponder right now—with itchy feet and a whirring mind and bloodlust nipping at the tips of my fingers. I can understand why Elluin loved this male with her entire heart . . . He threads his hand around the small of my back, tucking me into his chest, warm lips brushing against my temple. “Come back to me, Raeve. To us.” Then he’s gone.

Kaan may never know he’s everything to me. That I’d fall just to watch him fly. He may never know the youngling I carry is his or that I’m pitted with a fear that I won’t survive long enough to find a way to make this right.

Casting my stare up at the sky, I sob through short, sharp breaths that are so far from adequate . . . She lied for us. For him. Kaan. She lied for the youngling she carried all the way from their love den in Dhomm to this cold, caustic room where she’d lost so much already, all because she believed the words that spat out of my pah’s mouth. And for what? To die right here. To not see Kyzari grow. For Tyroth to raise Kaan’s daughter as his own. I close the diary, a venomous truth settling in my chest like a serpent poised to strike . . . These pages are going to rip the world to shreds.