Page 2 of The Crown of Moonlight
Today, I will not cry.
My tension, on top of the smell of blood, only adds to Ari’s nerves.He plants his legs and refuses to go farther.
“Easy, my handsome,” I whisper.“We can both be brave.”
If there’s a Grey bleeding in the Wood, I need to know.I can’t risk having one of the Raven Queen’s abominations follow me back to Dunhaelic Keep.
Ari rears as I kick him forward.His front legs thrash the air.Then his hind legs skid on the incline, and I jump out of the saddle to keep him from going over backwards.
Clinging to the reins, I pull his head down and wait until he steadies.His heart pounds so hard that it thuds against my shoulder.
I coax him forward.A dozen yards below the ridge, we edge around a thicket of dog rose blocking our path, and Ari snorts and stops.Head low and ears pricked, he stares fixedly at something on the ground ahead.
The trees have thinned to scattered birches and wind-gnarled pines.Light slants through them, revealing a man lying flat on his back.A few yards beyond that, a second man lies face down, tied across the saddle of a dappled mare who’s collapsed onto her side.The horse’s ears twitch, but she doesn’t raise her head.
Neither man is moving.
They aren’t Greys—they don’t have the pale skin or deformed limbs of the Raven Queen’s monsters.But they aren’t human, either.Our mortal magic was outlawed after the Sun King put the last of the Cailleach Queens and most of my family to death.Where it survives, as mine has, it’s kept strictly secret, and what little remains in my blood doesn’t carry nearly the strength that charges the air around these men.
They’ve done their best to look ordinary, I’ll give them that, going so far as to wear coats and breeches like tradesmen from the south instead of their own clothes or the kilted plaids our Highland warriors wear.Still, even if I couldn’t feel their magic, the swords buckled at their belts would give them away.Not to mention the wounds that must have caused their deaths.I can’t see where the man on the horse is injured, but he’s bled enough to leave a purple-brown crust dried along the horse’s withers, belly, and foreleg.More blood has stained the coat and shirt front of the man lying stretched out on the ground.
My pulse kicks into a run as I realise the bodies have been arranged.Someonearranged them.The man on the horse is tied to the saddle, but the other has been positioned respectfully, like a corpse in a coffin, with his hands folded across his chest.
Someone else was here—may still be here.
The thought brings on an eerie sense of being watched.Gooseskin prickles along my arms, and the sweat-slicked hilt of the dagger digs deeper into my palm.
I turn in a slow, wide circle, searching every shadow that shifts in the wind and each tree trunk thick enough to offer a place to hide.Nothing moves, and Ari’s attention stays fixed on the mare and the two dead bodies around her.
Eventually, my heartbeat eases.Inch by inch, I persuade Ari to move upwind until I find a sturdy tree where I can tie him.Then I creep back for a closer look.Ari whickers anxiously, pulling at his reins and pivoting to watch me.
The sweet smell and the warmth of magic thicken as I approach the bodies.As much as my brain wants to reject it, there is really only one conclusion.
The dead men have to be Everfolk, although that’s a contradiction in itself.The immortals from the world beyond the Veil can only be killed by removing their heads or piercing their hearts with celestial steel—an instant death that leaves no time for their magic to start to heal them.These men still have their heads, and if their hearts were pierced, then they must have been here in the Sacred Wood when they were killed.That is a problem for many reasons.
In the 1,600-odd years since the doorways through the Veil were sealed, only twelve Evers have crossed through from Tirnaeve to Alba Scoria: the Sun King who murdered our last mortal queen, the Raven Queen who killed the Sun King almost a year ago, and the rebel king and his Riders who arrived shortly after to challenge her for the crown.
If these dead Evers were among the rebel king’s close companions, the Sun King’s so-called heir will demand revenge.
Snakes of fear coil around my heart as I think it through.Because the king’s wrath isn’t the only danger.If the queen discovers Riders here, she’ll take it as proof that I’ve been sheltering her enemies.
Neither side would need to prove anyone at Dunhaelic had any hand in these deaths.The ancient laws still make it a hanging offence to harm an Ever—no questions, no trial, and no reprieve.I would face the gallows, and I wouldn’t face them alone.Vengeance, like water, trickles down to those below.Everyone I’m meant to protect would be as good as dead.
My knees tremble as I take the last steps to the nearest Ever.I crouch beside him, and a hot flush of magic ripples across my skin.More than I’ve ever felt at once.But that isn’t the only shock.Although the ancient tales talk about the beauty of the Everfolk, seeing it in front of me makes my breath catch.
The Ever is handsome in a way that explains the warnings in the ancient stories—the sort of blinding, dangerous beauty that makes humans lose their will and drives them into madness.His features are too eerily perfect, his black hair has the gleam of raven’s wings, and the blue eyes that look unseeingly into the sky catch the light like layers of stained glass, revealing more colours the deeper I look.
That sightless stare unnerves me, and I brush my fingers over his lids to close them.The skin is still warm.I flinch away from the contact, and my hand grazes a pale-blue crystal set in a ring the Ever wears on his right hand.
A pulse of pure magic jars me as I touch the ring—a hot, bright, and startlingly familiar type of magic.It reaches out towards the ember of power that burns inside me.
I snatch my hand away.The sensation ebbs, but I miss it when it’s gone—my magic misses it.Careful not to touch it again, I bend closer to examine the crystal set into the ring.There’s movement within it, gold threads of magic dancing like lightning behind a thin haze of cloud.The movement is mesmerising, holding my attention even as Ari snorts and stomps his foot.
It takes a moment for the thuds and the jingling of the bridle to register.Ari’s muscles are braced as he uses his back to pull harder against the reins that tie him to the tree.
A twig snaps somewhere close.Behind me?To the left?
I spin around, searching.But there’s nothing.No one.
