When the Moon Hatched (The Moonfall #1)

Chapter 89

T here’s a coldness about this place that digs all the way to your marrow.

I blame it on the fact that I’m not used to it. That I was born and raised north of the wall. Toss me amongst endless plains of snow, flurried storms, and breaths that make your lungs feel frostbitten, and I’m suddenly questioning every life decision that led me here, to this moment—walking through the sable halls of Arithia’s grand Imperial Palace dressed in the stark-silver garb of a servant.

My long, flowing skirt rustles with every step, a plain blouse buttoned to my nape where it meets a collar of fur that matches the tufted cuffs around my wrists. Not nearly enough layers to battle this bone-biting chill.

The vast size of this palace is boggling, the building cut into the side of a jagged, snow-covered mountain like spears of obsidian shot up from the ground, reaching for the numerous rounded moons nesting in the sky. All of Arithia is cast in a whimsical pearly glow that penetrates through the many windows in this haunting palace. So many windows that, with every turn up the obsidian stairway, I’m granted another fragmented view through panes crafted to look like shattered glaciers, made from thousands of shards in every tone of blue, silver, and white.

On and on I go, up the ever-winding stairs that are buffed to a high gleam, skirt shushing in my wake. Unsure why I’m going up .

Something in my gut, I guess. Not something I want to look in the eye any longer than I have to.

Get in.

Get the diary.

Get the fuck out.

Coming to an ornamental mirror on the wall, I pause, tucking strands of pale hair behind my pointed ears, checking my sharp, pretty features and blue eyes for any cracks in my imitative appearance—jarring as it is to see myself as not me .

Truly, very weird.

My silver, appearance-altering bangle hangs heavy around my wrist as I rearrange some strands back into place. A bangle with a hidden spike I used to poke both my finger and that of the female now bound, gagged, and unconscious in a cupboard in the servants’ quarters on the ground floor. With a pillow under her head—because I’m nice like that.

Too bad I didn’t think to ask the poor thing for directions before I knocked her out. This palace is a labyrinth, each doorway bracketed by stern, silver-armored guards known as Thorns, the hallways haunted by a constant stream of stone-faced maids bustling about the place, keeping its many sharp edges perfectly polished.

A bit like a gleaming trophy Tyroth is obviously very proud of. The fuck.

A dark-haired female dressed in the same garb as myself pours down the stairway in a swish of silver, her eyes widening when she sees me. “Ayda?” She nips a glance over her shoulder, her next words a quiet hiss. “You’re not supposed to be down here.”

Ayda.

Guess that’s my name. Good to know.

She slows, frowning. “Are you okay? What are you doing?”

Hunting for the ancient diary of Elluin Raeve Neván, hoping it hasn’t turned to compost in a wall somewhere.

“Well, you see—”

“Have you already been up there?”

That’s a baited question I certainly didn’t prepare for. Beginning to think I might’ve pricked the wrong maid …

“No?”

Her eyes almost bug out of her head. “You’re expected in the King’s chambers right now .”

My heart lurches.

Actually, that’s exactly where I need to go.

“I lost my way,” I say, offering her an awkward smile. “I didn’t sleep well. In fact”—I rub my temple—“I’m suddenly all confused about the levels. I think I lost track somewhere down—”

She snatches my arm, tucks it into the crook of hers, and tugs me farther up the stairs, past two Thorns moving against our grain before she leans close, speaking in a hushed tone. “We’re on eleven. You have another twenty-three to climb.”

“Of course.” I let loose a soft laugh similar to the one I heard the real Ayda make while I trailed her momentarily in the bowels of the palace, right before I knocked her unconscious. “Silly me.”

The female pulls a silken dusting stick from the pocket of her apron and wraps my hand around the cold handle. “You need to at least look useful going in there or the other females in the palace will talk, and that will displease him greatly. You know what he’s like.”

Yes. I do know what he’s like.

Sadistic.

Fucking.

Asshole.

I flash her another smile. “Thank you. I left mine … somewhere.”

Muttering something beneath her breath, she peels away, then turns back down the stairs, disappearing from sight.

I keep shoving up the twisting stairway that seems to go on and on, doing my best to count the levels. Easier said than done since some are stouter than others. Some, the stairway is woven through the air of wide-open atriums like a black squiggle—the atmosphere spiced with the sweet, intoxicating smell of illuminated flowers in full bloom, their glowing heads tipped to the windows.

I step onto a level with a lofty ceiling veined in silver threads, a grand double door directly ahead that’s bracketed by two sets of Thorns, their shoulder pads flaring to pointed peaks. Silver helmets cover most of their faces, wings splayed from the sides that accentuate the tapered tips of their ears.

Each of them wields a long iron sword, pointed down, both hands wrapped around the hilt. Swords that are almost longer than me .

My breath catches at the sight of the door, something inside my brain wiggling like a worm I can’t quite manage to pluck free and inspect.

Even if it weren’t for the extra guards, I’m somehow certain this is the place.

This is the sleepsuite where Elluin died.

My gaze darts from guard to guard. “I’ve got … dusting to do,” I say, waving my stick.

None of them even glance my way, though one of them raises a brow.

Right.

Permission to proceed.

Clearing my throat, I move forward when the door swings inward, releasing a familiar ashen scent.

My heart leaps into my throat.

I slide back a step, dipping my head.

Holding.

Paralyzed.

In my direct line of sight, a silver thorn-tipped boot pierces my view as I’m shoved within the crackling atmosphere of Tyroth Vaegor. Heart thrashing.

Thoughts churning.

Certain he’s looking at me with scarcely veiled vitriol in his eyes, like I’m a bug he wants to burn. Certain he’s about to shape his mangled thoughts into words that’ll crush my throat with their monstrous fists . That’ll make me feel small and weak and so fucking quiet—my tongue too heavy to speak.

There’s a long beat of silence, and I find my trembling hand tightening around the duster, the other reaching for the dagger I have stuffed in the deep pocket of my skirt—

“You’re late, Ayda.”

The foreign name snaps at my spine. Reminds me that I’m not Tyroth’s sister—not at the moment. I’m not the one that took his mother from him. The one he hates, and has since I was far too young to hate him back.

To even understand.

I force my fingers to loosen their hold on the weapon I promised I wouldn’t use, pull my hand from my pocket, and fist the fabric of my skirt instead.

“Apologies, Sire.” I dip lower, willing my heart to ease up on the white-knuckled blows to my ribs. “I overslept. Won’t happen again.”

My breath snags as his fingers pinch my chin, forcing me to look into his cruel, cutthroat eyes. One green, like Mah’s apparently were. One pitch black, just like the pit of his septic soul.

His black hair is half pulled up, the rest hanging loose around his shoulders, tumbling all the way to his elbows. His beard is, as always, adorned with a trio of beads.

Clear.

Brown.

Red.

He’s bigger than I remember—two heads taller than me and almost as wide as Kaan in the shoulders—his presence one of scarcely veiled chaos that contrasts his impeccable silver garb.

“Well. Nice of you to finally show up,” he says with that cutting sort of serenity that always makes me picture myself bleeding out with a stab wound I didn’t realize he’d stuck me with. “Tell me, Ayda. Do you think that carrying my bastard brings you certain … privileges?”

My mind empties so fast I’m certain the ground tips beneath my feet. Like the entire palace just dislodged from the toothy mountainscape and is now swaying side to side, trying to decide which direction it wants to fall.

What do I say to that?

“I have a child. An heir—disobedient as she is,” he grits out, like there’s a fireball of frustration welling on his tongue. “I don’t need another, and my tolerance of your condition dissolves the moment you no longer prove useful to me.”

My guts knot, words choking past my swollen throat. “I … Of course, Sire. Apologies. And thank you.”

“For?”

“Your tolerance.”

Definitely picked the wrong maid to prick.

A line forms between his brows, though it smooths when a parchment lark flutters close, quickly returning again when the damn thing dips between us and nudges against my chest.

My heart drops so fast it almost falls out my ass.

“This is unusual,” he says in that chilling way he speaks, snatching the thing, keeping his eyes on me as he unfolds it while my pulse pounds in rhythm with my slashing thoughts.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

“I—”

He waves it at me, both brows bumping toward his hairline. “It’s blank.”

Internally, I smile. Because it’s not blank.

Not at all.

Whenever either of us are beyond the safety of Dhomm, Kaan and I write our notes in invisible ink illuminated only by dragonflame we both carry a weald of.

Precautions. Never came in handy until now.

“A dud, perhaps.” He’s swift to rip the wings off the thing and toss its nonfluttering corpse to the floor—a visceral reminder of my brother’s brutality I didn’t need.

“I have business to attend to, but I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Go inside, get on your knees with a polish cloth, and make yourself useful until I return.” He turns and stalks toward the stairs. “Keep me waiting again and I’ll have your head.”

The tips of my fingers tingle with the sudden, violent urge to spray his blood across the perfectly polished floor, my upper lip twitching to pull back from my canines.

My foot kicks forward, hand digging into my pocket as if to grip my blade so I can leap and slash—

No.

I tug my hand free and fist it at my side, trying to squeeze the tingles away.

One, I said I wouldn’t kill him and start an impromptu war Kaan’s not yet fully prepared for.

Two, not like this. Not coming at him from behind, wearing the skin of another. I want to look him in the eye. Make him bleed the way I’ve bled. Hurt the way I’ve hurt. I want to spit the words that have been festering in my mouth for far too long, bruising my gums every time I stand paralyzed in his presence.

Anything less will be like a sip of water that turns to lava in my throat.

I tell myself that over and over as I watch Tyroth move down the stairs, relieved I spent a few hours folded over an ice boulder on the city’s outskirts, vomiting from this dagger of dread lodged in my gut. If I’d had anything left in there, it would be on the floor at my feet right now. Or splattered against Tyroth’s silver boots.

Can’t believe I knocked out his pregnant mistress. How horrible, when the poor thing is already living a slumber-terror.

I make a mental note to pad her pockets with enough bloodstone to buy her a better life before I wake her from her forced sleep and go on my way.

Tyroth disappears from sight, and I release a shaken exhale, my body loosening in places I didn’t know had tightened. I spin, picking up the deceased lark and tucking it in my pocket, then move into the vast chambers, letting the doors click shut behind me.

Eyes squeezed shut, I rest my head against the ebony wood and pull my lungs so full they ache, trying to shift the tightness from my chest. I pass the duster from one hand to the other, shaking both out, dashing the last of the tingles away.

Get the diary.

Get out.

Wake Ayda up so she can rush up here and avoid getting her head lopped off.

I open my eyes, widening as I take in the stark-black sitting room with panoramic views of the glittering city far below, seeing his sleepsuite through an open door to the left. I move through, pausing at the foot of the huge obsidian four-poster pallet.

My eyes narrow on a large mirror on the far wall …

It has to be there.

I make for it, cast a quick glance over my shoulder, then set the duster on the pallet and slide the mirror sideways, expecting to see a hollow—

My heart drops.

Nothing. Just a flat wall.

I appraise the space …

There’s nothing else on the walls in this sterile room. Meaning she can’t possibly have hidden it here. But this is where she spent the last chapter of her life. I know that for a fact—that she was too unwell to even make it into the streets and see her folk. To celebrate the impending birth. Something that meant so much to all Arithians, since conceiving has never come easy to those who don the Aether Stone.

I look to the balcony, realization slapping me so hard my knees almost give way.

Half the room was crumbled when her Moonplume broke through the wall after Elluin passed away, scooping up her lifeless body she then carried into the sky where she curled around her and died.

Perhaps she tore up the diary, too?

“Shit,” I mutter, dropping to the pallet, dragging my hands down my— Ayda’s —face.

I should’ve thought of that before I flew all the way here.

A deep wash of failure sweeps over me, the weight of it shoving me back onto the thick, cushiony pallet, tossing my arms out as I stare at the black velvet canopy.

I’ve been compulsively chasing a truth that doesn’t belong to me. That never did. Guess this is what I get .

Sweet fuck all.

Creators, this room feels morbid. And cold. What a shitty place to be stuck—rise after rise—pitted with the knowledge that you’ll probably die giving birth. Probably too exhausted to even walk to the balcony and get a clear view of … the … moons …

I lift my head, looking toward the balcony door—panes of glass that frame the sky littered with balled-up gray, pearly and iridescent moons.

My heart skips a beat.

If she were pallet-ridden, she would’ve hidden it within reach . Surely.

Why make things harder on herself?

Frowning, I sit up, imagining my belly is laden with life. Imagining I have a diadem on my brow that’s draining me to death, making it almost impossible for me to draw enough energy to breathe, let alone nourish my youngling into existence. Imagining that I’d want to look out at those moons right there. Mostly—the one belonging to …

Haedeon.

I edge myself off the side of the mattress, dropping straight down onto my ass on the floor beside it, looking out the balcony door to a perfectly framed view of Hae’s Perch. A sad smile lifts the corner of my lips …

This feels right.

Devastatingly right .

I plunge my left arm under the risen pallet, eyes on that gimpy-winged moon spilling its silver luster upon Arithia as I feel around the back post.

Across the back wall.

My hand pushes into a jagged hollow, a lump forming in my throat as my fingers graze across the face of a leather-bound book.

There you are …

I pull it into my lap, tracing my finger over the black and silver depiction of Kaan’s málmr. Something she must’ve painted on the otherwise black front.

The backs of my eyes sting at the sight.

“Oh, Elluin,” I whisper, hand trembling. I nip a glance toward the door before I lift the front cover, flipping through the yellowed flaps of parchment, each so beautifully scrawled upon. Even when she was small, her handwriting was immaculate—all dainty curls and twirls.

Just looking at each entry makes me feel as though I’m tumbling through a veil into another world seen only through her eyes.

First the young her. Then the adolescent.

Then the mature .

Lacking the time to read the entire thing right here, right now, but also lacking a single shred of patience, I flip straight to the end—to the final three entries. Immediately regretting it, realizing I shouldn’t have read this here.

I shouldn’t have read this at all.

My hand flies up and cups my mouth that I can’t seem to shut, my heart growing more laden with each barbed word I swallow. With each soul-crushing, life-changing word that doesn’t belong to me.

But I’m already there. I’m already invested.

Intertwined.

Reaching the final entry, I pull a shuddered breath and force myself to continue.

Every cycle I grow bigger, yet weaker in my bones. Almost too weak to reach into my hiding spot to retrieve my diary and read of happier times that remind me there’s still some good in this world.

The city folk celebrate in the streets each dae, as if my youngling is already here. As if the ashes of my loved ones don’t still taint the very air we breathe.

If Tyroth suspects the babe isn’t his, he hasn’t let on—not that we speak at all. Not that I have anything I want to speak to him about.

I’ve heard from one of his loyal aides—the only folk I’m allowed contact with—that a Bloodlace has arrived on dragonback this rise. If she’s here to test my youngling’s blood once I give birth, the paternal line won’t draw in Tyroth’s direction.

It’ll draw north—to Kaan.

All I’m allowed to do is wither here, bleeding my life force into this youngling, occasionally drawing enough energy to slide off the pallet and garner myself a clear view of Haedeon’s moon. I sing to it, and I swear I can hear it singing back.

Like it’s calling me.

I want to curl up with Slátra—to be with her while I labor—but I struggle to move on my own anymore. All but stuck on this pallet where Mah and Pah died. Where I pretended to conceive a youngling that was already seeded inside me. This pallet that used to be filled with love and song but now reeks of death and pain.

A battle is coming, I can feel it in my bones. Like my body is shoring up the courage to charge into a war I don’t think I’m going to survive. Even if I do, I feel like there’s a scythe hanging over my head, waiting to slice.

Either way, my heart is heavy with a seed of understanding I can’t dislodge. That I will climb back upon the pallet once I whisper goodbye to Haedeon’s moon, and I won’t rise from it again.

C asting 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.