First Chapter Preview
I hope you enjoy the first chapter of Crown of Moonlight (The Fallen Kingdoms, Book 4)! This has not been professionally edited yet, so please excuse any typos or errors.
If you have not read books 1-3, STOP! There will be spoilers as this is a series that must be read in order. If you're all caught up, then welcome to this new sinister story and buckle in.
If you have not read books 1-3, STOP! There will be spoilers as this is a series that must be read in order. If you're all caught up, then welcome to this new sinister story and buckle in.
This isn’t my home. It’s a prison.
My gaze stretches along the great stone wall that rises before us, barricading us from Bridgewick. Twisted barbs coil over the wall’s ledge, a mass of gnarled steel to keep something out. Or to keep Bridgewick’s people in.
My throat dries, and an iron shackle settles deeply inside my chest. It hurts to breathe. I cast my eyes to the moonlit ground as I stand outside my old home, pale soil spread beneath my feet, and a soft coat of ash covers my boots.
Graeden slips his hand into mine, and the anxiety pressing the air from my lungs softens. “Do you still want to do this?”
Clenching my jaw, I pull my eyes from the ground and scan the wall again. The barbs angle sharply against the moonlit night, vicious silhouettes tangled together.
I never planned to stay in Bridgewick—never imagined I’d come back once I left. Even had I married Tib, I planned to leave with him. To travel someplace where no one watched our every move and innocent people weren’t left to burn at the pyre for making a mistake.
After reaching Cliffside nearly two weeks ago, the last thing I wanted was to pack a bag and leave again. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to lay with Graeden and watch the stars, nestled against his chest with nowhere to go and nothing to do but stay wrapped in his arms.
But Caelum escaped Taiatum moments before we did. He took Tib, and I have no doubt he’ll return to Bridgewick. If he doesn’t rest, neither will I.
“We don’t have a choice,” I whisper.
A warm, familiar smile flickers beyond my vision. Her smile is a blazing hearth in mid-winter, a thick wool blanket in the deepest of night.
“My mother is inside.”
I hope. I don’t dare breathe my doubt to life. As far as my mother knows, I left her years ago to seek a wish from the Well of Eida. A brutal, tactless lie to a woman who had no one left. My stomach sours at the thought, the lie Caelum left her with. That heartless filth.
But as angry as I am with him, guilt burrows deep into my stomach because it was me who climbed out my window that night. I abandoned my mother, and I have to find her again to make things right. Inhaling a shuddering breath, I press the guilt away.
“I need to know if she’s still alive.”
“Caelum might be in there, too,” Graeden says.
My grip tightens around Graeden’s hand, his fingers weaved through mine. “I know.”
“Do you want to wait until morning?”
My gaze flicks to his and then to Jackah’s. Both wide, understanding, patient. I know they’d wait, even if it would get us killed.
We spent weeks trudging through the Enchanted Wood, picking our way around the silver branches and starlit leaves, foraging a path back to Bridgewick. As we weaved through the trees and scaled the steep slopes, I described my home to them—or what I could remember of it.
The Blacksmith’s Forge where I spent countless hours sharpening my blades, training to one day travel to the Well. The cleansing spring with the stone bird nestled on the wash basin’s edge, the one fixed to the Gathering, the center square where my father and sister died; and the faint tangy scent that always rode on the breeze—one of salt and brine, one that promised a nearby coast.
One we never wandered to. One we’d been told didn’t exist.
My chest tightens, realizing the elders controlled our people more than I ever knew. They didn’t want us to learn how easily we could leave.
I told them of the worn cobblestones lining the Gathering, where fire and ash fills my memory, the scent of burnt flesh wrapping around me. The vibrant paths of the Enchanted Wood, bathed in sunshine or dipped in shades as dark and secretive as the ocean. The path Caelum followed when he led me to the Well. The same path we’d have to travel to return.
I would love to wait until morning if only to give myself a few more hours to steel my heart, to shield it from the heartache and sorrow that lies beyond these stone walls. To protect the crudely sutured wound this village tore through me.
But it won’t make me any braver or keep us any safer.
I shake my head, my throat tightening.
We have no idea what waits for us beyond this stone, and we need to find out before it discovers us first.
Graeden tugs my hand, and I stumble to face him. His fingers curl around the back of my neck, and his thumb brushes over my cheek, soft but unyielding. Leaning forward, he presses his forehead to mine, and I’m encircled by his scent. He pins me with his amber gaze, smoldering and filled with the strength I don’t feel.
“You have conquered things others only face in their nightmares.” Heat pools in my stomach, and I latch onto his words. “Don’t doubt yourself for a second.”
And then his lips are on mine. His touch is firm yet tender, a petal-soft press filled with the strength of the entire forest. I melt into him and his courage bleeds into me.
The cool night air snakes between us as our lips part, and Jackah groans.
“Do you have to do that when I’m standing right here?”
My gaze drops between mine and Graeden’s bodies, a smile sneaking over my lips. Releasing his hand, I tighten my pack over my shoulder and approach the wall.
We scan the surface for footholds, but aside from the crevices between each stone and a few vines, there’s not much to boost us over. Not much, but enough. I brush a palm across the stone, wedging my fingers between two of them.
Just like old times, I encourage myself. Times when Tib and I let nothing stop our explorations. Times when my greatest ambition was to marry my best friend and flee this village. Now, I only hope we survive long enough to bring mother with us and maybe kill Caelum in the process.
Shoving the toe of my boot into a crevice, I hoist myself onto the wall. Flying would be much easier but neither Inaara nor Graeden’s phoenix would go unnoticed, especially if we carried a rider between us. Not in the mortal lands, which is one reason we traveled to Bridgewick on foot rather than by flight.
“Fastest one to the top gets to punch Caelum first,” Jackah says, pulling his lean frame up the wall with ease.
Beneath the moonlight, a smile tugs at Graeden’s lips, his arm resting against the wall and his eyes glinting with the challenge.
I brush a few loose pebbles from their place on the wall, feigning disinterest. “Like either of you could get close enough to him.”
“With you, we would,” Graeden says, climbing onto the wall next to me. “Second one up, holds him still.”
Despite myself, a laugh crawls up my throat, but it dies there. Before this ends, there’ll be more than a few strikes between us. Closing my eyes, I pray no more of the people I love get hurt. The breeze tugs at my hair, tied in a rough knot at the top of my head. It’s a cool, comforting kiss. And my mind imagines Kol—Ember’s god of winter—listening. Or maybe it’s Natiri, her goddess of spring.
I don’t know.
Removing a hand from the wall, I brush my fingertips against the runic markings along my forearm. Four runes stain my skin, one matching each of the seasonal runes tied to Taiatum’s gods. Their runic magic worked for me in Taiatum and again at Cliffside, so before we left the shore, I asked the Starfallen to make them permanent.
Thanks to Inaara, my blood carries a degree of magic though it’s not nearly enough to access the Moonstruck runes, that deeper well of power Ember’s gods give those with magic in their blood. But even access to the runes’ basic level of magic is enough. And now, I’ll never forget their shapes. Never be left without a way to protect those I love.
My gaze flits to Graeden who still stares at me, his brows lowered in amusement and his lips smiling.
“You’re on.” I shove Graeden’s shoulder, sending him stumbling off the wall, before pushing myself up the stones after Jackah.
“You’re a dirty cheat, dragon-shifter!” Soft laughter fills his voice, and for a moment, the anxiety coiled tightly in my chest unravels.
“Blame the man who taught me to win,” I call quietly over my shoulder.
“Oh, I do.”
Despite my head start, it doesn’t take long for Graeden to reach my side, a faint sheen of sweat on his brow, his hair pulled back at the nape of his neck and secured with a leather tie. My mouth falls open, and I pause as he pulls himself across the wall’s face, the muscles in his arms flexing as he ascends another stone. My mouth dries, and a flutter rolls through my stomach. Stars, Graeden...
Graeden pauses next to me, another amused smile crossing his mouth. He leans forward, closing the distance between us, and I can’t stop the gooseflesh crawling over my skin or the warmth bursting to life inside me. I gravitate toward him like two stars about to collide, and I don’t even care.
My chest rises with heavy breath, and my muscles burn as we hang from the wall, but it’s easy to ignore. Graeden is inches away from me, his lips nearly grazing mine.
“You forgot,” he breathes against my lips, and my gaze falls to them. “Never let your enemy inside your defenses.”
He brushes his knuckles over my bare shoulder and gives the smallest push. Just enough to upset my balance, but not enough to knock me from the wall.
I gasp, scrambling for my holds. A sobering panic washes through me, disintegrating my desire for him. “Don’t you dare!”
Graeden’s eyes are liquid amber, and he pins me with his gaze. “If we were traveling alone, I would dare. I’d knock you from this wall and fall with you forever.”
My cheeks warm, and something close to happiness bubbles through my chest. A smile tugs at the corner of my lips as Graeden pulls away, digs his fingers into another crevice, and ascends ahead of me.
My head is fuzzy as if I’m coming off too much ale, and a lightness fills my entire body. The anxiety that plagued our entire journey here has disappeared, and I wonder if that was Graeden’s plan all along. Tease me. Distract me. Play with me, anything to diminish the foreboding sense that whatever waits beyond this wall is unlike anything we have yet faced.
Shaking my head, I climb the wall behind Graeden knowing I’ve already lost as Jackah reaches the ledge, and yet a smile still lingers against my lips.
Too soon, Graeden grasps the wall’s ledge behind him and heaves himself to the top. His rapid breathing fades as he scans the village beyond the wall, and any hint of playfulness is replaced by a crushing silence. The lightness fades from me, too, and I scramble up behind them.
The twisted metal barbs glint in the moonlight, and I’m careful not to touch them as I peer at what’s left of my village. A numbness settles into my bones, and an aching hollow carves out my insides.
Thatch homes are sprinkled along the winding dirt path that leads to the Gathering, their stone walls smattered with mud and—I swallow dryly—shadow. I blink hard, bracing myself against the memories burned into my mind, memories of splattered shadows covering the walls of Taiatum’s Keep.
These aren’t shadows, though. These are something else—glittering sprays of night and obsidian as if the stones were touched by darkness itself.
Stones have been torn from some walls while other homes have bare holes burrowing through the thatch roofs. Each home looks as if it has stood through battle and then been left broken, bleeding, and scarred. I scan the streets, and my stomach turns. Some houses don’t stand at all anymore. They lie in blackened heaps, all rubble and ash.
Stars, I hope no one was inside when they burned.
An acrid scent wafts through the village as strong as it had when Bridgewick burned Father and Atarah. The chain cinches around my heart, and I press the heel of my hand against my breastbone. Inaara soothes the pain flaring through my veins, and I inhale a withered breath.
At the far end of the village, broken market stalls lay strewn across the road. We didn’t have many who sold their goods but enough to line the town’s edge. From this distance, I can barely make out the hazy silhouettes—decomposing lumps that may have once been fresh produce now in the late stages of decomposition. Rock and pottery shards are scattered among the shadows, shreds of fabric thrown haphazardly among it all.
What happened here?
“Ari,” Graeden whispers at my side, cautiously placing his hands on either side of the spurs lining the wall. “We’re too exposed on top of the wall. Watch the barbs, then lower yourself down after me.”
Blinking through my shock, I nod and place my hands against the chilled stone, the barbs winding between them. With a soft grunt, I hoist myself up and over the ledge after Graeden, careful not to let my leg brush the barrier. It would be a shame to have made it this far only to get strung up on the wall.
My arms burn as I lower myself over the wall’s edge, the village pressing against my back. Sweat slicks my skin, and my clothing sticks to my body. I wedge the toes of my boots into two small crevices before glancing over my shoulder at Graeden and Jackah. They descend, shadows moving effortlessly across the wall, and then leap to the ground.
With a thin breath, I face the wall and lower myself stone by stone. The night air curls around me, somehow colder within the wall than it was without. A shiver licks my skin, and an unsettled weight pins itself to my back.
I need to get off this star-forsaken wall.
Ignoring the anxiety blooming inside me, I don’t bother to look down. I don’t bother to test my footholds before putting my weight on them. I scramble over the stones, more of a fall than a controlled descent. I plunge into the shadows when a pair of hands firmly grasp my waist, and I gasp.
Graeden’s hands tighten against my sides, his long fingers brushing over my ribs. A flush seeps into my cheeks as he pulls me off the wall and into him, his chest pressed against my back. His muscles flex against my shoulder blades, his heart beating against my spine.
Softly, he threads his fingers through mine, linking us together as we step into the night’s cover. Our steps settle against the dusty road, silent and steady, as we approach the first house. We’re nothing but ghosts returning to a world that no longer exists.
My gaze flits to the darkened windows, gaping holes burrowing into the heart of the structure. A thin, tattered curtain is tugged through a hole, dancing on the light breeze. Ivy climbs over the stone with wrinkled, brittle leaves the color of blood and shadow.
So odd for summertime.
What was so fierce it drove Bridgewick’s people from their homes? And how long ago did they flee? Before Caelum arrived? Or after?
My fingers ache to touch the stone, to feel the decay and deterioration against my fingertips, to prove this is all real. But I don’t. My hand stiffens in Graeden’s—clinging to his lifeline—and he squeezes it tightly.
We’re too late. Whatever happened here, we’re too late. I swallow tightly. My gaze sweeps house after house as we wander deeper into Bridgewick, searching for the one I was raised in. My legs ache to move faster, to run through the familiar streets, to burst through the doorway as I did years ago. To call out for Mother.
But I can’t do more than place one foot after another on the packed earth. My muscles strain against the urge to move, to see. Because overshadowing everything is the overwhelming fear that my home will be empty, too. That Caelum didn’t lie in Eida when he told me my mother died beneath Norgrave’s hands. A cold sweat dews against my palms. My hand would tremble if Graeden weren’t holding it.
House after house, my heart sinks deeper. Broken stone, torn thatch ripped from the roofs, wares scattered in the road. And no sign of life. And every step brings me closer to my childhood home.
My soles brush over small pebbles embedded on the dirt road, and the quiet scrape rings through the night like the screech of a drawn blade.
A light flickers on two houses ahead, and I jerk back, stiffening. My heart lodges in my throat, and ice flows through my veins, a chaotic river washing all reasonable thought away. There’s a light.
Graeden and Jackah stand frozen at my side, all three of us immoveable aside from our hearts pounding in our ears. I fix my gaze on that small lighted window, worried if I blink it’ll disappear.
“Do you see—” I whisper.
“I do,” Graeden says, his voice a bare breath.
A smile tugs at my lips and hope flares in my chest, they’re alive. Someone is still here.
Releasing Graeden’s hand, I step toward the house and a mangled scream rips through the night.
My gaze stretches along the great stone wall that rises before us, barricading us from Bridgewick. Twisted barbs coil over the wall’s ledge, a mass of gnarled steel to keep something out. Or to keep Bridgewick’s people in.
My throat dries, and an iron shackle settles deeply inside my chest. It hurts to breathe. I cast my eyes to the moonlit ground as I stand outside my old home, pale soil spread beneath my feet, and a soft coat of ash covers my boots.
Graeden slips his hand into mine, and the anxiety pressing the air from my lungs softens. “Do you still want to do this?”
Clenching my jaw, I pull my eyes from the ground and scan the wall again. The barbs angle sharply against the moonlit night, vicious silhouettes tangled together.
I never planned to stay in Bridgewick—never imagined I’d come back once I left. Even had I married Tib, I planned to leave with him. To travel someplace where no one watched our every move and innocent people weren’t left to burn at the pyre for making a mistake.
After reaching Cliffside nearly two weeks ago, the last thing I wanted was to pack a bag and leave again. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to lay with Graeden and watch the stars, nestled against his chest with nowhere to go and nothing to do but stay wrapped in his arms.
But Caelum escaped Taiatum moments before we did. He took Tib, and I have no doubt he’ll return to Bridgewick. If he doesn’t rest, neither will I.
“We don’t have a choice,” I whisper.
A warm, familiar smile flickers beyond my vision. Her smile is a blazing hearth in mid-winter, a thick wool blanket in the deepest of night.
“My mother is inside.”
I hope. I don’t dare breathe my doubt to life. As far as my mother knows, I left her years ago to seek a wish from the Well of Eida. A brutal, tactless lie to a woman who had no one left. My stomach sours at the thought, the lie Caelum left her with. That heartless filth.
But as angry as I am with him, guilt burrows deep into my stomach because it was me who climbed out my window that night. I abandoned my mother, and I have to find her again to make things right. Inhaling a shuddering breath, I press the guilt away.
“I need to know if she’s still alive.”
“Caelum might be in there, too,” Graeden says.
My grip tightens around Graeden’s hand, his fingers weaved through mine. “I know.”
“Do you want to wait until morning?”
My gaze flicks to his and then to Jackah’s. Both wide, understanding, patient. I know they’d wait, even if it would get us killed.
We spent weeks trudging through the Enchanted Wood, picking our way around the silver branches and starlit leaves, foraging a path back to Bridgewick. As we weaved through the trees and scaled the steep slopes, I described my home to them—or what I could remember of it.
The Blacksmith’s Forge where I spent countless hours sharpening my blades, training to one day travel to the Well. The cleansing spring with the stone bird nestled on the wash basin’s edge, the one fixed to the Gathering, the center square where my father and sister died; and the faint tangy scent that always rode on the breeze—one of salt and brine, one that promised a nearby coast.
One we never wandered to. One we’d been told didn’t exist.
My chest tightens, realizing the elders controlled our people more than I ever knew. They didn’t want us to learn how easily we could leave.
I told them of the worn cobblestones lining the Gathering, where fire and ash fills my memory, the scent of burnt flesh wrapping around me. The vibrant paths of the Enchanted Wood, bathed in sunshine or dipped in shades as dark and secretive as the ocean. The path Caelum followed when he led me to the Well. The same path we’d have to travel to return.
I would love to wait until morning if only to give myself a few more hours to steel my heart, to shield it from the heartache and sorrow that lies beyond these stone walls. To protect the crudely sutured wound this village tore through me.
But it won’t make me any braver or keep us any safer.
I shake my head, my throat tightening.
We have no idea what waits for us beyond this stone, and we need to find out before it discovers us first.
Graeden tugs my hand, and I stumble to face him. His fingers curl around the back of my neck, and his thumb brushes over my cheek, soft but unyielding. Leaning forward, he presses his forehead to mine, and I’m encircled by his scent. He pins me with his amber gaze, smoldering and filled with the strength I don’t feel.
“You have conquered things others only face in their nightmares.” Heat pools in my stomach, and I latch onto his words. “Don’t doubt yourself for a second.”
And then his lips are on mine. His touch is firm yet tender, a petal-soft press filled with the strength of the entire forest. I melt into him and his courage bleeds into me.
The cool night air snakes between us as our lips part, and Jackah groans.
“Do you have to do that when I’m standing right here?”
My gaze drops between mine and Graeden’s bodies, a smile sneaking over my lips. Releasing his hand, I tighten my pack over my shoulder and approach the wall.
We scan the surface for footholds, but aside from the crevices between each stone and a few vines, there’s not much to boost us over. Not much, but enough. I brush a palm across the stone, wedging my fingers between two of them.
Just like old times, I encourage myself. Times when Tib and I let nothing stop our explorations. Times when my greatest ambition was to marry my best friend and flee this village. Now, I only hope we survive long enough to bring mother with us and maybe kill Caelum in the process.
Shoving the toe of my boot into a crevice, I hoist myself onto the wall. Flying would be much easier but neither Inaara nor Graeden’s phoenix would go unnoticed, especially if we carried a rider between us. Not in the mortal lands, which is one reason we traveled to Bridgewick on foot rather than by flight.
“Fastest one to the top gets to punch Caelum first,” Jackah says, pulling his lean frame up the wall with ease.
Beneath the moonlight, a smile tugs at Graeden’s lips, his arm resting against the wall and his eyes glinting with the challenge.
I brush a few loose pebbles from their place on the wall, feigning disinterest. “Like either of you could get close enough to him.”
“With you, we would,” Graeden says, climbing onto the wall next to me. “Second one up, holds him still.”
Despite myself, a laugh crawls up my throat, but it dies there. Before this ends, there’ll be more than a few strikes between us. Closing my eyes, I pray no more of the people I love get hurt. The breeze tugs at my hair, tied in a rough knot at the top of my head. It’s a cool, comforting kiss. And my mind imagines Kol—Ember’s god of winter—listening. Or maybe it’s Natiri, her goddess of spring.
I don’t know.
Removing a hand from the wall, I brush my fingertips against the runic markings along my forearm. Four runes stain my skin, one matching each of the seasonal runes tied to Taiatum’s gods. Their runic magic worked for me in Taiatum and again at Cliffside, so before we left the shore, I asked the Starfallen to make them permanent.
Thanks to Inaara, my blood carries a degree of magic though it’s not nearly enough to access the Moonstruck runes, that deeper well of power Ember’s gods give those with magic in their blood. But even access to the runes’ basic level of magic is enough. And now, I’ll never forget their shapes. Never be left without a way to protect those I love.
My gaze flits to Graeden who still stares at me, his brows lowered in amusement and his lips smiling.
“You’re on.” I shove Graeden’s shoulder, sending him stumbling off the wall, before pushing myself up the stones after Jackah.
“You’re a dirty cheat, dragon-shifter!” Soft laughter fills his voice, and for a moment, the anxiety coiled tightly in my chest unravels.
“Blame the man who taught me to win,” I call quietly over my shoulder.
“Oh, I do.”
Despite my head start, it doesn’t take long for Graeden to reach my side, a faint sheen of sweat on his brow, his hair pulled back at the nape of his neck and secured with a leather tie. My mouth falls open, and I pause as he pulls himself across the wall’s face, the muscles in his arms flexing as he ascends another stone. My mouth dries, and a flutter rolls through my stomach. Stars, Graeden...
Graeden pauses next to me, another amused smile crossing his mouth. He leans forward, closing the distance between us, and I can’t stop the gooseflesh crawling over my skin or the warmth bursting to life inside me. I gravitate toward him like two stars about to collide, and I don’t even care.
My chest rises with heavy breath, and my muscles burn as we hang from the wall, but it’s easy to ignore. Graeden is inches away from me, his lips nearly grazing mine.
“You forgot,” he breathes against my lips, and my gaze falls to them. “Never let your enemy inside your defenses.”
He brushes his knuckles over my bare shoulder and gives the smallest push. Just enough to upset my balance, but not enough to knock me from the wall.
I gasp, scrambling for my holds. A sobering panic washes through me, disintegrating my desire for him. “Don’t you dare!”
Graeden’s eyes are liquid amber, and he pins me with his gaze. “If we were traveling alone, I would dare. I’d knock you from this wall and fall with you forever.”
My cheeks warm, and something close to happiness bubbles through my chest. A smile tugs at the corner of my lips as Graeden pulls away, digs his fingers into another crevice, and ascends ahead of me.
My head is fuzzy as if I’m coming off too much ale, and a lightness fills my entire body. The anxiety that plagued our entire journey here has disappeared, and I wonder if that was Graeden’s plan all along. Tease me. Distract me. Play with me, anything to diminish the foreboding sense that whatever waits beyond this wall is unlike anything we have yet faced.
Shaking my head, I climb the wall behind Graeden knowing I’ve already lost as Jackah reaches the ledge, and yet a smile still lingers against my lips.
Too soon, Graeden grasps the wall’s ledge behind him and heaves himself to the top. His rapid breathing fades as he scans the village beyond the wall, and any hint of playfulness is replaced by a crushing silence. The lightness fades from me, too, and I scramble up behind them.
The twisted metal barbs glint in the moonlight, and I’m careful not to touch them as I peer at what’s left of my village. A numbness settles into my bones, and an aching hollow carves out my insides.
Thatch homes are sprinkled along the winding dirt path that leads to the Gathering, their stone walls smattered with mud and—I swallow dryly—shadow. I blink hard, bracing myself against the memories burned into my mind, memories of splattered shadows covering the walls of Taiatum’s Keep.
These aren’t shadows, though. These are something else—glittering sprays of night and obsidian as if the stones were touched by darkness itself.
Stones have been torn from some walls while other homes have bare holes burrowing through the thatch roofs. Each home looks as if it has stood through battle and then been left broken, bleeding, and scarred. I scan the streets, and my stomach turns. Some houses don’t stand at all anymore. They lie in blackened heaps, all rubble and ash.
Stars, I hope no one was inside when they burned.
An acrid scent wafts through the village as strong as it had when Bridgewick burned Father and Atarah. The chain cinches around my heart, and I press the heel of my hand against my breastbone. Inaara soothes the pain flaring through my veins, and I inhale a withered breath.
At the far end of the village, broken market stalls lay strewn across the road. We didn’t have many who sold their goods but enough to line the town’s edge. From this distance, I can barely make out the hazy silhouettes—decomposing lumps that may have once been fresh produce now in the late stages of decomposition. Rock and pottery shards are scattered among the shadows, shreds of fabric thrown haphazardly among it all.
What happened here?
“Ari,” Graeden whispers at my side, cautiously placing his hands on either side of the spurs lining the wall. “We’re too exposed on top of the wall. Watch the barbs, then lower yourself down after me.”
Blinking through my shock, I nod and place my hands against the chilled stone, the barbs winding between them. With a soft grunt, I hoist myself up and over the ledge after Graeden, careful not to let my leg brush the barrier. It would be a shame to have made it this far only to get strung up on the wall.
My arms burn as I lower myself over the wall’s edge, the village pressing against my back. Sweat slicks my skin, and my clothing sticks to my body. I wedge the toes of my boots into two small crevices before glancing over my shoulder at Graeden and Jackah. They descend, shadows moving effortlessly across the wall, and then leap to the ground.
With a thin breath, I face the wall and lower myself stone by stone. The night air curls around me, somehow colder within the wall than it was without. A shiver licks my skin, and an unsettled weight pins itself to my back.
I need to get off this star-forsaken wall.
Ignoring the anxiety blooming inside me, I don’t bother to look down. I don’t bother to test my footholds before putting my weight on them. I scramble over the stones, more of a fall than a controlled descent. I plunge into the shadows when a pair of hands firmly grasp my waist, and I gasp.
Graeden’s hands tighten against my sides, his long fingers brushing over my ribs. A flush seeps into my cheeks as he pulls me off the wall and into him, his chest pressed against my back. His muscles flex against my shoulder blades, his heart beating against my spine.
Softly, he threads his fingers through mine, linking us together as we step into the night’s cover. Our steps settle against the dusty road, silent and steady, as we approach the first house. We’re nothing but ghosts returning to a world that no longer exists.
My gaze flits to the darkened windows, gaping holes burrowing into the heart of the structure. A thin, tattered curtain is tugged through a hole, dancing on the light breeze. Ivy climbs over the stone with wrinkled, brittle leaves the color of blood and shadow.
So odd for summertime.
What was so fierce it drove Bridgewick’s people from their homes? And how long ago did they flee? Before Caelum arrived? Or after?
My fingers ache to touch the stone, to feel the decay and deterioration against my fingertips, to prove this is all real. But I don’t. My hand stiffens in Graeden’s—clinging to his lifeline—and he squeezes it tightly.
We’re too late. Whatever happened here, we’re too late. I swallow tightly. My gaze sweeps house after house as we wander deeper into Bridgewick, searching for the one I was raised in. My legs ache to move faster, to run through the familiar streets, to burst through the doorway as I did years ago. To call out for Mother.
But I can’t do more than place one foot after another on the packed earth. My muscles strain against the urge to move, to see. Because overshadowing everything is the overwhelming fear that my home will be empty, too. That Caelum didn’t lie in Eida when he told me my mother died beneath Norgrave’s hands. A cold sweat dews against my palms. My hand would tremble if Graeden weren’t holding it.
House after house, my heart sinks deeper. Broken stone, torn thatch ripped from the roofs, wares scattered in the road. And no sign of life. And every step brings me closer to my childhood home.
My soles brush over small pebbles embedded on the dirt road, and the quiet scrape rings through the night like the screech of a drawn blade.
A light flickers on two houses ahead, and I jerk back, stiffening. My heart lodges in my throat, and ice flows through my veins, a chaotic river washing all reasonable thought away. There’s a light.
Graeden and Jackah stand frozen at my side, all three of us immoveable aside from our hearts pounding in our ears. I fix my gaze on that small lighted window, worried if I blink it’ll disappear.
“Do you see—” I whisper.
“I do,” Graeden says, his voice a bare breath.
A smile tugs at my lips and hope flares in my chest, they’re alive. Someone is still here.
Releasing Graeden’s hand, I step toward the house and a mangled scream rips through the night.
I hope you enjoyed this early peek at the opening chapter for Crown of Moonlight! I can't wait for you to reenter this world and join these characters on this journey. Crown of Moonlight releases Fall 2026, and all the things will be dropping this summer, including the cover reveal, character art, and teasers! There will also be a special preorder campaign running directly from my Etsy shop, so keep an eye out for that.
If you want to be sure you don't miss any of the goodies, join my VIP readers here! All the things go out to my subscribers first!
If you want to be sure you don't miss any of the goodies, join my VIP readers here! All the things go out to my subscribers first!
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