Page 95 of Sun, Moon & Shadow

Idrian’s hand flew to his throat, pressing uselessly against the wound, blood gushing rhythmically around his trembling fingers. His wide eyes stared into hers, his mouth opening and closing silently, like a fish washed up on the shore. It dawned on her: This must be the look Idrian described. The shock of having underestimated one’s opponent. She savored the moment and Idrian’s stunned realization. She stepped to the side as he fell to his knees and tipped forward onto the rug, expelling a final raspy wheeze.

Released from Idrian’s control, Callan leapt to his feet and wrapped Nova in his arms. She sagged against him, gripping his shoulders as her legs buckled beneath her.

“I-I’m sorry,” she stammered, pressing her face against his chest, registering the sting of a split lip and a cut on the inside of her cheek from when Idrian struck her. Shame drenched her like a soaking rain, seeping into her bones and distracting her from the pain. She’d allowed her anger to cloud her judgment, and it led to chaos, just as Lucan warned it would.

“Everything is all right, love,” Callan murmured, breathing heavily as he stroked her hair. “You did it. He’s gone. He can never harm you again.”

A chorus of frightened shouts rang out in the distance, startling them both, and they abandoned their embrace. Callan crouched, reaching an arm under the bed to reclaim his sword. Nova still gripped her dagger, the blade wet with Idrian’s blood. Together, they rushed out of the tent and into the misty night air, barreling down the slope to the sea’s edge where Fawn’s flames continued to burn bright, lighting up the night and illuminating the scene along the shore.

The vast majority of the Silvergardian forces still lived, caged behind a wall of flames as tall as Callan. Two ships remained anchored offshore. The third had been reduced to ash and chunks of charred planks scattered on the surface of the sea. Pools of Fawn’s liquid flame continued to blaze, floating like seafoam atop the black waves.

Nova and Callan reached the shore where Fawn and Lucan stood. The waves lapped calmly at the toes of Nova’s boots, the sea remarkably tranquil despite the destruction Fawn had wrought upon its surface. Nova scanned the faces of the captured soldiers, fear and uncertainty painted plainly across their features in the glow of the flames.

These were Lunar folk. Her folk.

The rage Nova harbored toward Idrian faded as she looked upon them, the raw emotion withering until it was eclipsed by compassion. These soldiers had been poisoned. Manipulated as Callan had been. She empathized with them, as she knew her uncle would. Nova raised a hand, signaling for Fawn to reduce the intensity of the flames, which shrunk to half their size in the blink of an eye.

She gripped Callan’s hand, using him to steady herself as she climbed onto a small boulder on the beach. Her dagger remained in her right hand, her right forearm pressed to the wound on her abdomen.

“I am Nova of Silvergard,” she shouted above the clamor of the crowd. “I’ve come as an emissary of your Noble Lord. General Idrian is dead.”

A hush fell over the beach until the only sounds were the soft crash of the waves against the shore and the low, droning hum of the flames.

“The general has been controlling you. Training you all to accept conquest and destruction as your only options. Convincing you there is no other way to live. But Lord Nox fervently believes there is another way—that a better life is possible for all the folk of Silvergard. I beg you: Lay down your weapons in favor of another path. Do this and your Lord will grant you mercy.” She paused, breathing deeply and pressing her arm against her wound. “Will you choose another future? Will you choose another way?”

The night was overwhelmingly quiet as the soldiers seemingly weighed her words. Nova began to succumb to the exhaustion she’d barely held at bay, her consciousness ebbing with every drop of blood that fell from the slash across her abdomen. Her lids fluttered, and her eyes rolled back.

The muted thud of steel on sand hauled her back from the brink, eyes snapping open. The sound repeated itself over and over and over as nearly two hundred soldiers dropped their weapons at their feet. When they knelt on the shore before her, it looked like a shimmering silver wave rolling forth from the sea.

Forty-Six

Nova drifted about in a haze, her senses and affect dulled by weariness, oppressive and bone-deep. While their small band of warriors emerged from the skirmish with only two casualties, both from Arik’s squadron, the rebel Silvergardian forces had fared far worse. She insisted upon honoring all of the fallen, working alongside the survivors to gather the dead, and commemorating them with a funeral pyre along the shore.

All but Idrian.

“What would you have us do with his body?” Callan asked soberly.

Nova’s rage flared anew, and she forced her response through clenched teeth. “Leave him out for the crows.”

Callan made no attempt to dissuade her, squeezing her forearm reassuringly before turning to Lucan and jerking his chin in the direction of Idrian’s tent.

Nova limped through the somber crowd to a quiet spot at the water’s edge. Thick gray smoke billowed up from the pyre, joining with the mist rising off the surface of the sea and carrying the souls of the dead to the After Realm. She pressed a palm to her abdomen. The wound had clotted, but the sting remained. She held her hands out before her, fingers trembling slightly and covered in dried blood. A mixture of Idrian’s and her own. She spied Lucan and Callan emerging from Idrian’s tent, carrying the general’s corpse between them.

Had she smiled when she twisted the blade? Her legs began to shake beneath her. Nova conjured the moment in her mind, pictured her lips first curling into a faint smile, then splitting in a wide grin, like that of a madwoman. The same wild expression her father wore as he hovered over her in her nightmare. She spun to face the sea, eyes shut tight, inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her mouth. After several minutes, she opened her eyes again and looked out over the Gloaming Sea toward Raven’s Isle, the Shadow Court lurking in the distance, invisible through the fog.

Nova flinched at the weight of a hand on her shoulder, twisting to find Fawn and Evander behind her.

“I’m afraid we must be leaving,” Fawn said, tilting her head apologetically. “With any luck, no one in Pyralis will have noticed we were gone.”

Nova scanned her friend’s face. The weak smile and drawn features. The faint, dark circles hanging like crescent moons beneath her large brown eyes. Fawn pulled her into an embrace, and Nova registered how loosely her friend’s slender arms wrapped around her shoulders. Fawn had overexerted herself; she needed to return home to recover. Fresh shame sent heat creeping along Nova’s limbs. An apology caught in her throat. But she was certain that if she tried to give it voice, the full volume of her emotions would rush out alongside it like a raging flood. So she swallowed it down instead.

Fawn released her and produced a small glass bottle from within her corset top. Removing the cork stopper, she poured a substance resembling ash into her hand. Nova watched as Fawn blew a breath along her palm. The sea breeze caught the fine gray powder, and it swirled and gathered, revealing a portal where nothing had been an instant before. On the other side, a sea of vibrant sunset-colored leaves danced in the wind, the Autumn Court suddenly as close as an adjoining room.

“We’ll speak soon,” Fawn said, taking hold of Nova’s hand. She squeezed once and arched a fine brow. “Perhaps then you’ll tell me what’s really been going on.”

Nova nodded and squeezed Fawn’s hand once in response.

Uncharacteristically quiet, Evander made no farewell of his own apart from a casual lift of his brows in Nova’s direction. With the utmost care, he took Fawn by the elbow and supported his sister as the two of them crossed the threshold into Pyralis. The portal twisted and collapsed in on itself once they passed through.