All Chapters of Blood of the Black Moon: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

By dusk, the citadel was a cathedral of shadows. The wind carried the smell of cooling stone and something faintly metallic—the echo of power that refused to die completely.Kaelira had spent the day patching what remained of their gear, burning what couldn’t be saved, and trying not to think about the taste of Zevran’s kiss. Every time she caught herself drifting, she’d press her thumb against the Mark until pain brought her back. The bond thrummed like a heartbeat that wasn’t hers.When the first stars clawed through the fading light, Zevran stirred from where he’d been sitting at the edge of the collapsed hall. “You keep pacing,” he said, voice rough. “You’ll wear a trench in the floor.”“Better that than sitting still.”“You say that like rest’s a curse.”“For me, it is.”He smirked faintly. “Figures.”Kaelira exhaled, rubbing her temples. “The energies are settling, but not quiet. The seal’s holding, but something’s watching the edges. I can feel it.

Morning came thin and colorless, the sort of light that forgets to warm what it touches. Rain had started sometime before dawn, a fine mist that turned the cobbles of Verryn’s Gate slick and silver. The city’s noises drifted through the window—hooves in the mud, the cry of vendors setting out wares, the slow heartbeat of life continuing whether the world approved or not.Kaelira woke first. Zevran was still asleep, one arm thrown across his face, his breathing even and deep. In the quiet she let herself look at him—at the faint scar tracing his jaw, the dark hair fallen over his brow, the small line between his eyes that meant he dreamed even in rest. Something inside her ached with unfamiliar softness. She hated and needed it all at once.She rose carefully, washed in the basin, and sat by the narrow window. Outside, smoke from the morning fires blurred the outlines of the street. The city smelled of bread, horses, and rain. For a moment she could almost pretend they were o

The rain hadn’t stopped when dawn bled over the hills. It fell in a steady whisper that blurred the line between earth and sky, coating armor and cloaks with a dull sheen. The camp came awake without words; riders stamping out the coals, harnesses buckled, horses snorting steam into the cold. Every movement sounded smaller beneath the drizzle, as if the world itself were trying not to be heard.Kaelira mounted first. The Mark on her wrist throbbed once, faint but insistent, like a pulse answering another far away. She ignored it. Not now. She’d spent the whole night ignoring it.Zevran swung into his saddle beside her, shaking water from his hair. “Morning,” he said, tone too bright for the gray around them.“Barely.”“Good. I hate cheerful ones.”Captain Senn gave a curt signal, and the column started east. Ten riders, two strangers, one invisible leash. The road wound through drowned forest, then rose into the first low ridges of Eidryn’s borderlands. Every mil

The sound of the outer gate dying away left a silence too complete. Kaelira could hear her own heartbeat, and—beneath it—something deeper, slower, patient. The air pressed close, thick with dust and age. Zevran lifted the lamp from his belt; the blue-white flame trembled, throwing their shadows against a wall of carved stone.They stood at the mouth of a descending stair that curved like a throat into darkness. The walls shimmered faintly where quartz veins caught the light, making the descent seem alive.“Lovely,” Zevran muttered. “If tombs are your taste.”“It isn’t a tomb,” Kaelira said quietly. “It’s a heart.”She brushed her fingers over the nearest carving. Lines of script wound across the stone in spirals—neither council nor cult work. Older. The letters pulsed once beneath her touch before settling into a soft glow that lit the first few steps.Zevran eyed the glow warily. “Do all ancient runes flirt back?”“They respond to bloodlines.”“Good thin

Dawn had not yet broken over Eidryn. The city still lay wrapped in rain and slate-colored mist, its towers rising like black teeth through the fog. Only one building burned with light—the High Council Hall, a cathedral of glass and white stone perched above the river. Within it, silence reigned so absolute it seemed the air itself bowed to it.Lord Meroth stood before the vast window that overlooked the sleeping capital. His reflection stared back—tall, composed, features carved into diplomacy. Behind him, the chamber filled slowly: boots on marble, the muted clatter of signet rings on wood, robes brushing like whispers. Twelve chairs circled the obsidian table, and one by one the city’s rulers took their places.The bells had not yet tolled the hour. That was the point. Important decisions were always made before the world was awake enough to object.When the last chair scraped into place, Meroth turned. “We begin.”A ripple of acknowledgment passed through the room