Page 9

Instead, he raised his gaze, a grateful smile covering his twisted desires.

“I will not fail again, Father.”

“I know, Lucan,” Aurelion said softly. “I must say, despite it all, the southern lands agree with you. I almost began to think you preferred those moldering ruins to your home.”

Home.

Lucan smiled. If he didn’t, he would surely scream.

“I would never abandon you, Father.”

“No.” Aurelion’s eyes gleamed. “I know you won’t, my son.”

A cold sweat broke across Lucan’s shoulders, the scars on his back burning as if torn open anew. Did Aurelion already know how deep Lucan’s failures ran? The moon elf, still breathing. His thrall, dead by her hand. And his chest, covered with a new silver-tainted scar.

Yet the Bloodlord only smiled.

“Have you enjoyed the festivities?”

Lucan stared.

“Father?”

“The feast for your return. I see they brought out the vintages that remain from Gairan’s fallen kingdom.” Gairan. It sounded hideous coming from Aurelion’s mouth. Indifferent to Lucan’s stiff smile, he gestured lazily at the court behind him. “Only the best for my beloved heir. They missed their prince, it seems.”

Lucan only hummed in agreement.

“I know the travel north was difficult. Rest, Lucan. The time for business will come later.” Then, louder, Aurelion continued as he turned to face the court. “Arise, my children! Let us celebrate the return of my beloved son.”

The court rose like marionettes, then erupted into applause—perfectly trained pawns moving without hesitation.

The Bloodlord gazed long at his adoring court, one hand curled around his cane while the other held Lucan close. Lucan could only think about what punishment awaited him even as Aurelion held his hand high and kept singing his praises of the “son granted to him by the gods themselves.”

Where the fuck had Senna disappeared to?

four

Mother's Arms

Pale oranges colored the western sky, creamy shades melting into white then fading into deep blues. Birds circled low in the air while they gathered their final meal before night descended. To the south, near the glittering Star-in-the-Lake and her placid waters, dragonflies whirled and pirouetted like courtly dancers. The fading amber light caught on their iridescent wings. Stardust breathed life into their forms, the lesser kin of the blessed moon elves.

Elarian paid no heed to any of the majesty around her.

Her gaze bore ahead as she walked, arms heavy with her trusted silver blades and the black-and-midnight-blue clothes gifted to her by the Knight-Saint. Behind her, six supplicants walked with bowed heads, their pale blue robes softly rustling over mossy rock and clover. Hidden from the world except for a mesh screen over their eyes, they served She Who Is Death in silence, their identities stripped and names forgotten. Their presence always made the skin on the back of Elarian’s neck prickle—especially the tall one with shockingly blue eyes.

Smoke curled around Elarian as she walked. Censers burning moonflowers and rosemary swung on long silver chains, each supplicant swinging them back and forth in perfect synchronicity. Elarian wrinkled her nose at the scent. The Knight-Saint claimed the burnt offerings cleansed the vampiric rot from the Blades.

It had never worked for Elarian before.

At last, the Moontowers fell away from her vision, and only the Grove of a Thousand Fallen Stars remained. Even though she had seen it a thousand times and a thousand more, Elarian gasped softly as a massive tree glimmering like moonlight filled her gaze.

Estarin rose far above her, a cathedral grown from the earth itself—its smooth bark pale as sun-bleached bone, vast branches with crescent-shaped leaves twisting over each other as they each sought to touch the moon. Between them hung blooms of silver and white, so bright they shone as if stars plucked from the sky. They had filled her branches long ago; when the stars fell from the sky, she gathered them in her arms, nurturing the Fallen Stars until Melistra rebirthed them as the elves.

She knew Estarin was her true mother, but the sight of the tree always reminded Elarian her birth mother had abandoned her long ago.

“Ashen One,” said a Blade posted at the twin hawthorns arching together over the Grove entrance. “Welcome home.”

Elarian did not shift her gaze from Estarin. “Only until the next moonrise,” she said grimly. “My home will be the mists soon enough.”