Novels by LUNA

Chapter 66POV: Arthur"Hold still," said the old woman. "If you wriggle, I will tie you to the bed.""I am not wriggling," Elena said. "The bed is wriggling.""The bed is a bed. You have a fever."We had drifted for two hours before Corvin steered the ferry into a quiet bend, where a small cottage sat among the willows with one lantern burning at its door. The woman who opened it was tiny and bent, with white hair in a braid down to her knees and sleeves rolled to her elbows. She took one look at Elena, swore in a language I did not know, and pointed at a bed.Her name was Nan Orla, and she had been the river healer for fifty years. She did not ask a single question. She only said, "Everyone out except the boy," and rolled up her sleeves even higher."Why the boy?" Draven asked."Because she keeps saying his name," said Nan Orla.So I stayed. I sat beside the bed and held a bowl of hot water, and I watched the old woman's quick brown hands. She cut the arrow shaft, packed the wound w

Chapter 65POV: ArthurDraven slid the shutter open a finger's width and looked out. When he turned back, his face was the color of old candles."Three hundred riders," he said. "All around the house. Brask is in front, and he has brought a torch for every man.""Marshal Draven!" Brask's voice rolled across the water, big and warm and strangely cheerful, like a baker calling customers into his shop. "Is that you in there? They said you had turned traitor. I told them it was a lie. I said, not the Skull Man, he would never.""They told you the truth," Draven called back.A short silence. "Oh," said Brask. "That is a pity.""Commander." I stepped up beside Draven before I could change my mind. "Can I talk to you?""Arthur, no," Elena hissed. She grabbed my wrist. "They will shoot you the moment you open that door.""They will not shoot a boy who is holding a spoon.""That is not a real rule!""It might be." I pulled my hand free as gently as I could. "Brask does not want a fight. He is

Chapter 64The Toll House at Crow FordPOV: ArthurWe found the first body before the last light was gone.It lay half in the reeds, an Iron Guard on his back with his helmet knocked off and his eyes open. Draven knelt beside him and turned his head gently, the way a person checks on a sleeping child. Then he stood up and walked to the next one, and the next. There were eleven in all, scattered along the bank like dropped toys."They were killed from behind," Draven said. "Every one of them. Not in a fight.""Who would attack the King's own escort from behind?" Elena asked."Somebody who was standing in the escort." Draven pulled open the cloak of the nearest guard. Underneath his coat, sewn on the lining, was a tiny red hand made of thread. He found the same badge on six of the eleven. "Brask's men. They rode with the King all the way from Ash Hollow, and they waited until the ford.""And the other guards?""Dead, or gone." Draven's voice dropped. "Two hundred men, Arthur. I chose ev

Chapter 63POV: Arthur"You want to do WHAT?" Thomas whispered.He was whispering because a little girl was asleep on his shoulder, and he was furious, so the whisper came out like a kettle about to burst. We stood in a circle behind Maren's cart, and everyone was staring at me."I want to ride after the King," I said again."The King who killed your father.""The King who gave an order without knowing who he was giving it about.""That is not better, Arthur!""No," I said. "It is not better. But it is not the same, either."Thomas opened his mouth, shut it, and patted the sleeping girl's back to be sure she was still asleep. Then he tried again, a little softer. "Why? Give me one good reason. I will wait.""Because he is the only person in the world that the army still fears. If he dies at Crow Ford, the Winter Order is the last thing his soldiers ever hear from him. Nobody will be left to say that it was wrong. And Sunhaven will burn, with all the people in it.""There are people in

Chapter 62POV: ArthurBy sunrise, the riverbank looked like a very strange village. Women shared bread in the reeds, and old men sat in rows with blankets over their shoulders. Children ran in circles around the carts that Maren had taken from the stables of Ash Hollow. Nobody wore chains anymore, and I kept looking at them to be sure it was real."Three hundred and twelve," Elena said. She sat on an upside-down bucket and drew little marks in the mud with a stick. "I counted twice. Nobody is missing.""Count a third time," I said."I will not. The first time I was careful, the second time I was scared, and a third time would just be showing off."Behind her, Mina sat beside Vance's blanket with a bowl of soup in her lap. She held the spoon in front of his face like a knight holding a sword."Open," she said."I am a grown man," Vance said weakly."You are a grown man with a broken leg. Open."He opened. Mina nodded, very pleased, and dipped the spoon again. I laughed so hard that El

Chapter 61"What do you want me to do?" the King asked.His voice was very quiet. He knelt in the river, an old man in a wet grey cloak, and he did not look like a king at all. He looked like somebody's grandfather who had lost his way home."I want you to let them go," I said. "All of them. The hostages. My friends. Everyone.""And then?""And then I want you to stop the war."He closed his eyes. For a long moment, I thought he would not answer. The torches hissed on the bank. Behind me, a hundred people held their breath."I cannot stop it," he said at last.My heart dropped. "Why not?""Because it is not mine anymore." He opened his eyes. "I started it, boy. I started it twenty years ago, in my rage and my grief. I told my generals to take the south, the north, the west. I told them nothing could stop us. They believed me." He gave a terrible, tired smile. "A war is like a river. You can open the gate. But you cannot close it.""Majesty!" Sorrel's voice cut across the water. It was