LOGINAviva
Rain patters across the wooden roof covering one corner of the old temple. I roll off the makeshift bed of hay and wool blankets I keep here. I stretch, rolling my neck. My hands are still bloody from the rogue I encountered last night as I gather my weapons and head down to the creek.
I sleep out here sometimes, especially when the weather is nice. The old temple is just far enough from the village where I don’t have to worry about running into anyone dFallonThe humid weight of mid-summer beats down on my brow as I move through the garden, frowning at the twenty-foot wall shielding my view of the city of Moonrise–and the public's view of me. I crouch to pull a few weeds from the base of the hedgerow and dust my fingertips on the apron I stole off a hook in the servants’ hall just off the garden, twisting the rough fabric between my fingertips. I rise and move on to the thickets of mustard greens, ignoring the tomatoes because their leaves make my fingers green and itchy, and all the while, a tall, aggravating, annoying, pointless shadow follows my progress. I look up at the guard in royal garb–which includes a helmet and mask of iron–something I suppose was designed to look menacing, and it sure does. Sunlight glints off braids of iron and onyx covering his nose and mouth. His eyes are pools of the deepest black, even in direct light. His chest and arm guards are no different and likely weigh over a hundred pounds. I guess that’s
AlexToby braces his hands on either side of the bundle of blue fabric on my bed, tilting his head and squinting at the little fist reaching through the folds of a baby blanket. “Was he born with fangs?” He reaches like he’s about to stick his filthy fingers in my son’s mouth. I swat his hand away. “No, of course not. He’s a baby.”“Babies can have teeth. Don’t–don’t look at me like that, Alex. They can. Look it up. It’s rather terrifying.”Lucan starts to whimper, flailing until he loosens the blanket. Toby winces and backs away, allowing me to scoop Luc up and tuck him in my arm, giving my friend a better view of the newborn who was born only two weeks ago. “Wow. He looks like Skye.”“He does, doesn’t he? That’s exactly what I thought when I saw him for the first time.” Actually, I was thinking a million things during a horrific twelve-hour labor that Skye breezed through while I crumbled, her face set in silent determination. I’ve truly never met another woman like her. Once she
SkyeFive months later…My office at the University of Moonrise is in a spire overlooking the back half of the sprawling, ancient city of gold and the lake, which shines a deep turquoise in the mid-summer sun. I juggle several books as I move like a snail up another spiraling staircase, pausing several times to catch my breath and wave away the curious, concerned looks and pleas to help that my fellows throw in my direction. I’m due at the end of the week, and while joining the university as a fellow and researcher with plans to start lecturing again next year has been the best kind of distraction, this pregnancy has been awful, and I am so ready to be done. It’s been a marathon, and I’m not a runner by any means. Lately, I've been desperate to shift, but I’m too far along to risk that now. So, I walk around the lake. I hike up and down the staircases in the palace, where I’ve recently taken a suite at Kenna’s urging because, according to her, I could give birth any day, and it feels
SkyeTwo more weeks pass in a blur. At first, it seemed like a hundred years. I was constantly poked and prodded and wasn’t deemed healed enough naturally to have Misty and Kenna step back in with their magic, but finally, the morning came when I managed to swallow without pain, and the rush to heal me completely returned with fervor. Misty arrived, working her magic, sewing me together from the inside out. Kenna managed the baby, keeping whoever this tiny person growing inside of me is safe, but I wasn’t out of the woods yet. The worst thing about this recovery was the sharp and violent return of my pregnancy symptoms. I traded being bedridden with a catastrophic injury for being bedridden with nausea so severe that I lost ten pounds in a matter of days. Alex was amazing through all of it, but I know conversations were being had in the background about the ability of me returning to Lunaria, because right now, it doesn’t seem like an option. And, this morning, the option to return
SkyeIt is not, in fact, all over. “What?” I croak while Mom aggressively fluffs my pillows and settles me upright in my bed. I was right–I’m in my old room in my parents’ house in Moonrise. Thick, impenetrable curtains hang from my windows, blocking out ninety percent of the sunlight, only allowing strips that Alex seems to walk through without any issues. I don’t remember anything, save for the first moments of the attack and glimmers of hazy images of my dad’s office before it all grows black and blurry. “The Alpha of Aurorium wants someone to take the fall for the murders,” Maeve, who spirited into the room ten minutes ago, explains with overt annoyance. She’s perched on the edge of my bed, dressed casually in a dark red sweater and matching pants, with her extraordinarily thick brown hair piled messily on top of her head. Kenna left the room twenty minutes ago. To do what, I have no idea, but Alex remains, pacing and tapping his fingertips on his chin while watching every brea
SkyeI’m dead. I must be because I open my eyes to grainy sunlight highlighting a room I’d be able to see fully in the dark. I know this shallow, cream-colored carpet. I know there’s a bright purple nail polish stain in the corner of the walk-in closet on the far side of the room, hidden beneath a stack of boxes. I doubt my parents know it’s there. There’re three windows along the wall–circular and wide. My grandma Leona fussed so much over the fact that Dad designed windows no one could make curtains for, and by some miracle, she managed it herself. But the curtains in my childhood bedroom aren’t… familiar. They’re different. Thick and black, they block out the majority of the light, only letting fractals of what I believe is the sunset through. Am I in hell? Is this what it looks like? Being thrust back into my awkward teenage years? I fist the comforter–velvet corduroy–my favorite. I turn my head away from the strip of light flickering over the room and watch speckles play acros
Lexa“Now what?”Kaleb moves in, reaching for me. I close my eyes as his fingertips graze my cheekbone, and I don’t fight it when my body instinctively leans into his touch. It’s short lived. His thumb grazes my cheek like he’s counting the freckles before he pulls away, and then I’m alone, in a ki
LexaAustin brushes my shoulder as he moves in front of me, the two of us towering over the beach on our perch high above the waves. Without the fires, the beach is practically invisible, but it’s the silence that’s unnerving. I look out over the water with the slightest turn of my head. It’s a cle
LexaThe pack house of the Glade is remarkably similar to the ones in Silverhide and Endova. It’s a single wide, airy room with multiple entrances to the outside world but no windows. Long tables stretch in its center, but smaller tables and wobbly stools meant for moving around are scattered throu
Lexa“Stay close,” Kaleb whispers sternly over the top of my head as we follow a set of fae guards through the bowels of the castle. “It’s not like I can go anywhere,” I reply under my breath, trying to wrench my arm free of his iron-like grip. He hasn’t let go of me since the moment Lis and I ste







