Chapter Twenty-Three
The golden device hits the floor with a gut-wrenching clatter and the second I see the damage, my stomach drops.
At least half the petals have snapped clean off, the stem hangs bent in the middle, and the flame—gone.
No, no, no.
Scooping up the warm pieces, the metal clicks in my hands as I try forcing the pieces back into place, turning the broken petals over and over as finding the right angle, the right pressure, it’ll somehow work again.
But nothing fits.
I try again anyway, pushing, bending, ignoring the sharp bite of it digging into my fingers.
Still nothing.
Fuck.
Dropping back against the side of the bed, a hopeless breath leaves me as my spine loosens and my shoulders sag with it.
Staring at the broken device, frustration, grief, sorrow—every painful ounce of weakness I’ve tried so hard to keep buried—rushes to the surface so fast it makes me dizzy, and the remains of the Letter-threader blur behind the sting gathering in my eyes.
Crack.
Another flap of the tent pulls my attention sideways, but this time it’s Ahria slipping inside.
She glides straight for Talen’s flight jacket at the end of the bed, claws catching lightly in the leather before she circles once and settles there.
Her violet eyes fix on me—hunched on the cold ground with ten twisted, intricate pieces of gold metal trembling in my hands—and I swear one of her brows lifts.
Sniffing back the tears, I drag my arm over my face, the scratchy wool of my sweater soaking up the dampness from my eyes and nose.
Mum would never have done this, sat on the floor crying and losing control like this. She would’ve picked herself up, carried on, found a way through, and I should do the same. I need to.
But the harder I try to pull myself together, the bigger the lump in my throat gets.
Swallowing against it, my jaw clenched until it aches as I refuse to let the tears come, but the pressure only builds, making it harder to pull air into my lungs.
God, Talen warned me that I needed to find a way to let all these feelings out, and he’s right. Because shoving it all down clearly isn’t bloody working anymore. It just keeps building and building until every little thing feels capable of splitting me wide open.
But I can’t afford to just completely fall apart either, not this close to Blood Moon. I need another way to get it out, something I can control.
Gathering the rest of the broken pieces, I place them carefully on the bed behind me before reaching for the pencil and notepad.
Not to write to Talen, not even to make sense of everything that's happened, but just to put some of the noise in my head somewhere else for a while.
For one long breath, I just stare at the blank page, pulse thudding thick behind my eyes, not knowing where to even start, but the second the pencil touches paper, the words come fast and fluid, and once they start, they don’t stop.
“The moon looks so big tonight,” Neeve sighs beside me, her head tipped back in awe. “I’m glad we’re on patrol together. Last week I was stuck up here with one-eyed Lee.”
“In that case, I’m glad it’s you too,” I reply, leaning back against the support pole behind me that holds the dragon warning bell.
Wood creaks with the movement, the whole makeshift platform feeling as though it’s shifting beneath me. We must be about four stories high, but I force myself not to look straight down through the gaps between the rotting planks and instead let my eyes drift over the tents below.
Most of the lanterns have gone dark, and moonlight washes the camp in pale silver, making it appear softer than it is. Safer than it is.
We’ve been up here for the last few hours, tucked above the camp on this rickety platform that feels one small gust away from collapsing, and usually I’d be annoyed about getting put on the late shift.
Tonight, though, the distraction feels like mercy, because every creak of wood, every sweep of the tree line, every useless check of the shadows gives my mind something to do besides think about what’s waiting for me after tonight.
Following the pale glow over the canvas roofs, I glance up.
The moon hangs high above us, huge and bright and almost ordinary.
Almost.
Because tomorrow it won’t be silver.
Tomorrow, it will be red.
Tomorrow is Blood Moon.
Shivering, I tuck my fingers inside the thick woollen sweater Magda knitted me, then pull Talen’s flight jacket closer around myself. Despite the fact it now smells more like Ahria than him, it still calms me in a way nothing else can right now.
“I can’t believe you broke it.” Neeve shakes her head beside me. “Other than the fact it’s your only way of talking to Talen, that thing must be priceless, maybe one of the only ones remaining.”
“I’m trying not to think about it.” Sinking down further, I bury my neck deeper into the warmth of Talen’s jacket as the sleeves of the oversized sweater swallow my hands completely.
Hidden beneath the wool, I start picking at the loose edge of one cuff.
I’m still stressed, still anxious and twitchy as hell about Blood Moon, about not being able to train as much as I want, but I’m surprised by how much the journaling helped.
I haven’t actually worked through any of it yet, but for the first time, the grief that’s been with me since I arrived isn’t sitting so heavily on my chest anymore.
Metal chimes above us and I crane my neck up to where Ahria is darting around the dragon bell, chasing the poor moths lured there by the reflected moonlight.
“So you think someone is leaking information?” I ask Neeve, looking down at the camp. The tents are packed so close together now that the paths between them have almost disappeared. From up here, it’s easier to see how much it’s grown, and how little there is left to hide behind.
“I mean, they must be...” Blowing into her palms, she rubs them together for warmth. “Darren thinks I’m crazy, and I don’t get told much since they keep most of the logistical stuff between the riders and senior recruits, but I just have this feeling something’s wrong.”
For a moment, my fingers pause against the cuff of my sweater as I think back to Merrin’s explanation during the last briefing, that the camp had simply grown too big to hide properly anymore.
It makes sense, but the way he said it...
as though even he didn’t fully believe it.
My mouth opens to ask more about it but then another memory lands.
“Hey, what’s the deal with that stone blade you mentioned?” Neeve tilts her head at me as I sit up a little straighter. “In the first briefing, when you said Serrane can’t be killed—that nothing can touch him or hurt him except maybe this random stone blade that's been lost for centuries?”
“Oh—yeah.” She lets out a small chuckle and shuffles around to face me.
“Don’t laugh, okay? Most people think it’s complete bullshit, Darren definitely does, but my dad and I used to love all those old stories from before the Treaty.
Before he was Reassigned, taken, he’d sit in the tavern with all his weird friends listening to rumours, then come home and tell me what he’d heard.
” Taking a breath, she starts absently twisting something around her finger before continuing.
“One night he said he heard someone talking about this blade carved from stone. Supposedly no one can touch it except Aurelians, but after the Treaty—after the curse—even they can’t anymore.
Apparently it burns their hands off or something. ”
Frowning, my eyes narrow on her. “Okay... but how’s a stone blade supposed to kill Serrane if he’s harvested so much pure magic that nobody can even touch him?”
“Because the legends say—or, well, the drunk guy in the tavern claimed—that it wasn’t forged to cut flesh.”
“Then what’s it meant to cut?”
“Threads.”
“Threads?”
She nods and I lean back against the wooden post behind me as my thoughts drift for a second.
Talen had something like that in the tunnels, didn’t he?
The night I tried to escape from the Citadel.
A blunt blade, maybe stone, or close enough to it...
But no, that can’t be right because I touched it, he touched it, and neither of our hands burned off.
Besides, Neeve’s entire source is some drunk man in a tavern, which doesn’t exactly scream reliable—
“Do you think we’ll find them?” Neeve’s voice pulls my focus forward, and I blink over at her.
“Our dads,” she mutters softly, her eyes dropping to her hands as her thumb drags over a glint at her finger.
“Or do you think it’s already too late? That Serrane’s drained them, stolen their Threads for that weapon thing of his, and now they’re part of his black-eyed army? ”
Lifting my hand, I smile and cup hers. “We’ll find them.
” I don’t have the heart to tell her I already know my dad is probably long gone and I don’t want her thinking hers might be too.
Giving her a small squeeze, something pointy digs into my palm.
“What’s this?” I ask, unlacing my hand from hers to see a small blue stone glinting in the moonlight, set into a thin silver band wrapped around her finger.
“Oh… uh, Darren had it made for me.” Her hand jerks away.
“That’s a good thing, right?” I respond, noticing the tension in her voice. “That you finally got one?”
She huffs a laugh, glancing down at it. “I mean, we were already engaged, he just wanted it to feel more official, I guess.” Her thumb drags over the stone. “Especially now that I’m not entering Blood Moon, and my family will be evacuated soon, Darren wanted to finally set a date.”
The stone sparkles as she turns it, bright and pretty enough that I can’t help staring. It should look like hope, like a future waiting for her, but when I lift my eyes to Neeve’s, none of that brightness is reflected back.