When the Moon Hatched (The Moonfall #1)

Chapter 75

R aeve’s hand is so warm and alive snagged around my wrist. Such a contrast to our frosty, jagged surroundings. To this shard of bitter emotion lodged between my ribs, swung with the same hand she now uses to lead me through the pulse of celebration.

Some folk glance at me as we pass, then at the breathtaking female dragging me along, weaving us through the throng in a trail of silver tendrils that gust behind her. 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.

She snags a crystal flute from a passing server, then downs the drink in a single gulp, thumping the empty glass atop a table on our way past.

Stealing glances at the sky, she stills within a somewhat less-crowded area of the dance space framed by clusters of icy columns, only a few other couples dotted about, swaying to the beat. Raeve lifts my arm above her head, and I stand still as she closes her eyes and twirls—smiling. Kicking up the fog and packing my lungs full of stones.

The aurora casts her skin in a silver sheen, her smile so wide her dimples pucker. Dimples I’ve not seen since she burst into laughter at Mah’s special place, reviving me despite the vicious words that followed. Before that, not since the last slumber we spent together, when the aurora was just as flush.

Another slumber we spent pretending .

If I’d known that slumber would be our last, I would’ve spoken the words I’d been edging around for cycles. Begged her to take my hand forever, despite my weaknesses.

My shortcomings.

Begged her to break from the Tri-Council’s decision—for us . Because I thought that’s what she wanted.

Us.

That the Creators had blessed me as the one she chose to love.

A very big part of me still believes it. Refuses to accept that what we had was light and flimsy enough to scrunch up and toss in the bin. And perhaps that makes me weak. Soft of heart. Incompetent —just like Pah used to say.

He proved me right too many times before I took his head.

Yet here I am again, standing stationary while Raeve dances around me with my soft heart in her fucking hands, dripping blood all over the floor. Here I am again, looking at her like she crafted the world with a few whispered words, every sweep of her eyes twisting that jagged weapon lodged in my chest. Only this time, I’m not blind or in denial.

This time, I fucking see .

She’s hurting. Lost someone. Maybe more than one. She thinks she doesn’t deserve … this.

Us.

That if she opens her heart and lets me in, something bad will happen.

It most certainly will, but what she doesn’t see is that her love bolsters me. Strengthens me. When she shines that light my way, nothing can hurt me.

Nothing.

“ Dance with me,” she pleads, grabbing my right hand. She wraps herself around me, giving me a nudge so I untangle from her hold like she’s the lead.

Feels fitting.

She coaxes me to twist with her to the music’s droning tide, and I give her the bare minimum, turning as she drags me about the floor, feeling like I’m standing in the path of an impending moonfall—too transfixed on its plummeting beauty to step to the side.

To save myself.

She spins into my arms this time—so close.

So unbearably far away.

It’s tempting to accept this scrap she’s offering. To lean in and embrace this “goodbye to Elluin” Raeve seems to think I want.

“You did request a dance, correct?” she asks, looking up at me from beneath a thick fan of black lashes.

“Correct.”

“Doesn’t look like it,” she jests, brows raised. “You have to actually move your body . Shocking, I know.” She tosses herself free in a churn of silver tendrils and whisking fog, boasting much of her body to a loose ring of curious onlookers who’ve gathered behind my fence of austere guards to watch her dance.

They look at her like the enigma she is—more untouchable than Clode—while she moves as though oblivious to their stares, lost in her swirl of make-believe.

I clear my throat, the song taking on a slower, deeper drone.

She spins toward me, tripping on a tendril.

I dip low and catch her just before she hits the ground, my arm bracing her bare back, our noses almost touching.

Her wide eyes lock with mine as she puffs a breath upon my face …

The celebration falls away. The crowd.

The song.

There’s nothing but a pair of big azure eyes, our tangling exhales, and the welcome weight of her in my arms.

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

Her gaze drifts to my mouth, and my heart becomes a ferocious beast pounding for release. Begging me to crush the barrier between us and kiss her, like throwing myself to a nest of Sabersythes to be torn apart—slowly.

Painfully.

“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.

I don’t know what happened to her after Slátra’s fall, but I can see the fractures she hides so well. The missing pieces.

The pain.

She’s just like Slátra. Just as broken.

What I wouldn’t do to help her feel whole again. To piece her back together, much the same as I did her dragon. Weathering the cuts to my flesh. The frostbite. The endless fucking regressions when the entire thing would crumble and I’d have to start all over again.

And again.

And again.

Keeping her tucked close, I move with her, breath stilling when she settles her head on my chest like she means to stay, braiding my heartstrings into a perfect rope she tugs .

Forcing myself to relax again, I graze my fingers up and down the silky skin at the small of her back—maneuvered by lures of the past.

She shivers against me in the way she always did, deepening my grave with another shoveled scoop.

It’s an effort not to groan. To break away and smash my fist into a wall until my knuckles bleed.

I should’ve let her walk away rather than pretending I’m okay with this.

But I’m weak .

Soft hearted.

I drift my touch up the side of her long, elegant neck, and her entire body trembles, melting against me, our fingers interlacing like a quiet dance of their own.

“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 .

History is repeating itself all over again, and it makes me want to rip the fucking world in two. Crack it open in hopes of finding the answers to the heartbreaking riddle of …

Her.

A deeper beat pounds at the air—

Folk scream, and my stare whips up at the same moment a large Sabersythe plummets from the sky, straight toward the dome.

A buck, based on his heavily spiked tail.

He spreads his wings and scoops around, giving us his back, looking toward a second Sabersythe now charging him from above—jaw cranked so wide I can see the churn of fire welling on the back of its tongue.

Fuck.

Folk drop, flattening to the ground. I tuck Raeve behind me as a plume of dragonflame pours across the dome, preparing to catch it should my blood-runes fail.

The ruddy blaze clamors against my shield, volcanic heat boiling my blood until I’m certain my organs are mush—

The beast bites down, gnashing the air, and a cool breath of relief fills my lungs when they churn into a skyward chase—the smaller beast luring the bigger one to court her closer to the moons.

I spin, heart plunging as I scan the now-empty dance floor, screaming folk still ducking beneath tables or clustering at the base of frosty sculptures. Raeve nowhere to be seen.

Like she vanished.

My heart resumes its rampant beat when my stare latches onto the slab of shadow between two ice pillars. The entry to the maze.

Raeve peeks around the corner, her gaze cast on the retreating dragons. Almost like she’s … hiding from them.

Something fierce rises inside me like a boil of liquid flame, setting every cell on edge.

Raeve doesn’t hide. Not unless she’s got something to hide.

I frown, studying the tightness around her eyes, her blanched knuckles a tribute to her crushing grip on the ice, certain I’m peering through a looking glass to something that wasn’t meant for me. But I’ve seen it now.

I’ve fucking seen it.

Her eyes widen, face pales. She inches deeper into the maze before she spins on her heel and sprints out of sight moments before another flare of dragonflame ignites the sky. All but confirming my suspicions.

Something cold and jagged slides through my chest, and I chase—weaving through a tangle of thin paths pressed between pillars of ice that reach for the moons above. Following the intangible path of her butterberry scent.

I take a sharp left that’s a dead end, dragging my hand across the frosty wall, inhaling her on the tips of my fingers. Like she ran in here, slapped her hand against the wall when she realized there’s no way out, then turned around and sprinted back the other way.

Another blow of dragonflame ignites the sky, threading down the clefts between the paths, warming my skin with its luminous heat—the blaze of light making the ice look like it’s burning.

But not just that.

The pale remnants of otherwise invisible runes sketched into the pillars glow . Runes that cast the terracotta stone in a glamour of frosty ice.

Runes only visible because of the dragonflame .

Frowning, I look up, watching the Sabersythes wrestle above. Again skimming so close their spear-headed tails threaten to slash through the dome as they tussle for dominance.

“Do you have something to hide, Moonbeam?”

Her huffed response comes almost instantly—brought to me on an icy breeze. Like she’s standing right beside me. “What an absurd assumption.”

I don’t miss the nervous hitch to her voice. A rasp I’ve heard only once before.

When I flicked the lid on my weald back when I found her in the prison cell, revealing a bulb of Rygun’s dragonflame I used to ignite the mended wound on her head.

I squeeze my eyes shut, threading my hands behind my neck and gripping tight. “Then why did you run?”

A beat of silence.

Another spill of fire.

Another crack in my heart.

“I thought you enjoyed hunting me down ?”

It’s presented as a jest, but I see it for what it really is:

A distraction.

“Or was that a lie, Your Majesty?”

No.

Elluin used to hide in the jungle, her playful sounds echoing through the trees.

I used to chase her.

Catch her.

Make love to her.

This is different. I’m now certain she’s hiding something—building her walls sky-high.

It’s getting lonely on the other side.

I stalk forward, look left and right, drawing deep breaths of the air laced with her scent—finding it stronger to the left. “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.

“Show yourself. Now, Raeve. Or I’ll crumble these pillars and you’ll have nothing to hide behind.” I pause, splaying my hand against one, a clash of robust words sitting in my chest like boulders. “They may look like ice, but I assure you, they’re not. I could turn them to dust in a heartbeat.”

Though my voice is big, it’s pitched with a desperate, hopeful plea.

A beg .

She’s probably picturing me on my knees, and perhaps that should bother me. It doesn’t. I’d spend eternity looking up at her if she’d only fucking let me.

“Okay,” she whispers—so quiet.

So loud.

My heart hitches from a hook of hope, though I’m certain I heard her wrong.

“Okay?”

“Close your eyes first.”

Four small words never felt so heavy.

So crushing .

They sit on my chest like mountains as I cast my stare to the sky for a long, agonized moment, looking at the moon almost directly above, watching the Sabersythes blow their flames while they wrestle through the dim. Wishing for a reality where she could be as vulnerable with me as I am with her—her words from the cell a haunting echo in my ears.

Not until you turn around.

It’s like watching Slátra fall apart all over again, feeling that crumbling grief inside my chest as the pieces scattered right when she was taking on such sturdy shape.

But my hope is a flame that’ll never blow out. Not when it comes to her. She could sink me to the bottom of the Loff, and it’d still burn like a sun.

Leaning back, I tip my head against the ice and squeeze my eyes shut. “They’re closed for you, Raeve …”

Small flapping things swarm through my chest while I wait, for better or for worse.

Broken or whole.

Wanting.

Loving.

I feel her presence before I hear her, the hairs on my arms lifting as her lips brush my temple, so featherlight I’m almost certain I imagined it. But then her hands are threading through my beard, tipping my head to the side.

Her lips press against my neck, mining a gravelly sound from deep inside my chest—the kiss so real I know it’s not a dream.

“You’re here,” I murmur, a tremble rattling through me. Like I just dislodged a ghost from my bones and set it free, scrubbing some of the weight from my chest that was packed tight from phases and phases of dreams that felt so real.

That never were.

“Another,” I beg, the next kiss pressed to the spot just below my ear.

My cheek.

The corner of my mouth.

“Where now?” she asks, her voice tentative. Nervous even.

Like she’s standing on unsteady ground.

“My lids.”

She used to kiss them when she thought I was asleep. Of all the things I’ve missed during the many phases I’ve lived, I’ve missed that the most.

I hear her swallow before she leans so close her exhale tickles my lashes, her lips pressing upon my left lid, then my right—like a warm, pillowy gift from the Creators themselves.

My next breath is more unsteady than my knees.

Another blow of flames warms my skin—

She stills, and I hear her heart skip a beat, feeling mine mulch.

Oh, she’s hiding …

I squeeze my eyes tighter, and she softens against me even before the flame snips off.

“You’re remarkably good at keeping your word, Sire.”

“I’ll take it to my grave , Moonbeam.”

I feel her cheeks swell in a smile, hearing the flame-throwing Sabersythes scream off into the distance, wings beating into an echo.

“Count to ten,” she whispers against my neck. “Then come find me beneath the moon.”

What?

My hand whips forward to thread around her waist and pull her close, only to tuck around my own abdomen.

My stomach dips, eyes snapping open.

I search both ways, but she’s gone—not even a swirl of mist to mark her retreat.

“ Moonbeam !”

The name bangs off the walls like tossed boulders as my head cuts left and right.

“You’re not counting,” she chastises from afar, and I sigh, crunching my hands into fists. Releasing them. “Are you doing it in your mind?”

“ Two ,” I grind out, shaking my head. “ Four—Six—Eight— ”

“You’re a terrible counter.”

“ —Ten .” I lunge forward, kicking through troves of mist. “Sing me a song, Raeve. Give me something to chase that’s real. ”

Please.

Nothing while I stalk down path after path, but then her voice comes to me. A melody that weaves across my heart in silky notes that both slice and soothe.

I pause, close my eyes, and absorb—pulling my lungs full, like her tone is a meal my soul just sat down to feast upon.

There she is …

I’ve heard folk speak of Rayne’s voice. Of how it’s so achingly beautiful it makes you want to weep. Of how Clode makes you question your own sanity.

I imagine Raeve is a blend of both, sewing knots in my chest I treasure despite the agony they cause.

With a single lyrical order, she could will me to the edge of a cliff.

To jump.

I charge through the maze like I’m following a map in my own mind—turning left then right, racing down a jagged path before turning right again. I come to a lofty ice pillar with an opening carved in one side, moving into the hollow and up a curled stairwell, every turn bringing me closer to her haunting melody. The same song she once sang to me while she cried outside Slátra’s hutch.

I burst onto the pillar’s flattened top that’s large enough to support a nesting Moonplume, directly beneath a luminous moon. Almost close enough to the aurora to touch the threads of light.

“Lie with me?”

I look down at Raeve—on her back, her stare pinned to the moon overhead, hair unraveled and cast around her in crimped waves. Her mask has been flung aside, her dress a scatter of ribbons mostly draped across the ice, less so against her pale skin, like she just fell from the sky and landed here.

My heart aches at the sight.

The thought .

Clearing my throat, I lift my crown and set it on the stone beside her mask, then do as she asked, placing myself beside her, arms at my sides as I study the moon—its appearance altered by the dome’s distorting veil.

Usually black and spiky.

Now silver and smooth.

“I like this moon,” she whispers, followed by a lengthy pause. “It’s the same color and size as the little wonky one I could see from my window back in Gore.”

The same one on my back.

I swallow, the silence between us growing its own mournful pulse. “Do you want me to tell you why you like it?”

“No.”

Of course not.

Glimpsing movement to my right, I frown as she rolls atop me. With her back to my chest, she reaches down, grabs my arms, and weaves them around her body—now bound in a hug she built for herself.

I forget how to breathe. To blink.

To fucking think .

I close my eyes, speaking past the noose threatening to strangle me. “This hurts, Raeve …”

“I don’t want that,” she rasps, and her arms tighten their grip on mine, like a clenching comfort that fails to soothe the burn. “I wanted—”

“I know what you wanted. But I find no joy in pretending to have something we don’t.”

“I can’t do anything but pretend …”

“Because you lost someone?”

She stiffens in my arms.

This time, I’m the one to tighten my hold, tempted to squeeze her until our bodies fuse.

After a long pause, she finally whispers, almost too soft for me to hear, “Yes.”

My heart splits, the knowledge of her devastating past sitting in my chest like a lump of lead. A cruel, burdening weight I loathe to pile atop whatever grief she’s already carrying before she slips through my fingers again.

But a necessary cruelty.

She needs to be able to make a justified decision about her future based on the facts of reality. Not this smokescreen she’s living behind.

I thought I’d have more time to pick the right moment. Wait for her to grow curious and seek the answers out since the moon reveal went so fucking poorly.

Now I see the truth.

She senses the weight of her past, or she wouldn’t be resorting to such extreme measures. She’s poisoning her curiosity, refusing to let it sprout.

Meaning she’d rather be alone for eternity. Alone, and happily na?ve.

Unfortunately for her, I have a responsibility I refuse to cower from.

“I envy the dragons, Kaan. They worship death so beautifully. We just … lose . Left with nothing but ghosts and memories that feel like wounds.”

The throaty husk of her voice forces me to keep my eyes closed. Raeve doesn’t break when she’s being watched. She stuffs it all down, pretends it’s not there. And right now … she’s not pretending.

At all.

“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 .”

My composure snaps.

I rip off my mask and tip her, catching the side of her face, dragging my thumb across her lips. Her breath stills—her eyes wide and glazed, cheeks wet with tears.

There’s such bold shock in her stare that I feel like I’m seeing the real her for the first time since she fell back into the world. Not just Elluin. Not just Raeve.

A beautiful, devastating blend of both.

A pained groan grates up my throat, and I take her mouth in a crushing kiss, tasting tears on her lips as I finally jump off the cliff she sang me to the edge of.