When the Moon Hatched (The Moonfall #1)

Chapter 9

H aedeon leaves early next cycle to try and steal his own Moonplume egg. He has to sleigh there and spend many slumbers in snow huts on the way, even though it’s dangerous beyond Arithia’s walls.

Seems a bit silly to me, since Pahpi’s Moonplume could carry him there so fast. But Haedeon keeps saying that’s how it’s always been done. That he wants to prove himself.

I don’t think Mahmi and Pahpi want him to prove anything, because I overheard them beg him not to go. Not that it worked.

This aurora fall, Haedeon smiled big and made lots of jokes while I was helping him fold his clothes and tuck them in his bag, but I can tell he’s scared. I can tell because he gave me three butterberry chews from the jar he keeps beside his pallet.

Normally, he never gives me more than one at a time because he says they’ll give me a bellyache, which is a lie. I ate all three and my belly feels fine.

Pahpi said it’s really hard to get a Moonplume egg. That you have to go to Netheryn—the place where it’s too cold for almost everything else to grow or breathe—and climb really high ice towers without being seen. That you have to steal the egg from a mahmi Moonplume’s nest, then get back down the tower fast and quiet.

My brother’s big and he makes lots of noise all the time. He doesn’t know how to breathe soft or make his boots not crunch in the snow. Even his voice is rough and coarse like grain.

He doesn’t hear any of the elemental songs.

Maybe those butterberry chews do give you a bellyache after all, because I don’t feel so good anymore …

I don’t think my brother’s coming home from Netheryn.