SOLVED. Fantasy YA. Girl assassin assigned to protect a dreamer enroute to a temple, prologue is the dream walker is in the desert like dream realm near a temple or column and gets hurt badly. Spoilers ahead. [s]

[Margaret]

Spoilers!





I think the book opens with a failed assassination attempt with poison? The man is caught and later he turns out to be someone’s uncle. The story seems to kind of have vague Asian influences. The main character is the most skilled trained assassin and there is a woman who dreams that everybody is after. The girl assassin needs to protect her as they go to another temple. But the temple they are going to has a corrupt priest who is incredibly attached to his honing pidgeons (he is later punished by the bad guy who kills his pidgeons in front of him).

On the heroine’s journey I think there is some kind of magic cat who helps her out. The woman she is trying to protect has to smell some kind of special burning thing in order to get to the dream world. I think in the dream world the moon is in some kind of danger?? I just keep having impressions of some kind of chanting thing that happens and someone in the dream worlld trying to get to the moon’s gate. At some point thr moon starts bleeding? Or is injured or something?

I read this last year as part of kindle unlimited and I think its a trilogy that may not have been completed yet...

[Margaret]

There is also the male main character. I believe the failed assassination attempt was by his uncle who is slowly dying of poison in prison. The uncle is part of a secret league. This male protaganist is an outcast from his family and his only hope is to pass a kind of exam. He is later recruited by the secret society that his uncle is a part of. I think this male character also has access to the dream realm and he is the one who is trying to get to the gate of the moon but then his evil father and brother are also in the dream realm and there is some kind of confrontation. His brother turns into a dragon? Or something like that...

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Margaret, are you still looking for this or did you find it?

[Ky]

Could this be the Dreamblood duology by N.K. Jemisin? The Killing Moon and The Shadowed Sun are the two volumes.

[Margaret]

Lobstergirl wrote: "Margaret, are you still looking for this or did you find it?"

I just found it! Discovered the borrowed items list on Amazon and FINALLY figured it out. The Golden Daughter books by Anne Elizabeth Stengl. One of the books is literally called the Dying Moon- should have just done a search for that title.

[Margaret]

Ky wrote: "Could this be the Dreamblood duology by N.K. Jemisin? The Killing Moon and The Shadowed Sun are the two volumes."

It’s actually four books- The Golden Daughter books by Anne Elizabeth Stengl. Finally figured it out- its been bugging me forever!

[Kris]

Great! Glad you found your book, Margaret. Thanks for the update. Here's the first book - The Crouching Shadow by Anne Elisabeth Stengl.

"Golden Daughter" series - https://www.goodreads.com/series/1882...