All Chapters of The Red Luna: The Queen of the Flames: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

ROWENAI heard it. Not clearly. The Sanctuary walls were thick and the distance between my chambers and the eastern courtyard was considerable and the night swallowed most of it. But sound carried in the mountain cold in ways it did not carry in warmer air and I had been awake and still since before the third hour of night, sitting on the edge of my bed with my hands in my lap and my ears doing the work my eyes could not.Metal. Voices raised and then cut short. The particular quality of organized violence, which I had learned to recognize in a fighting pit with sand under my feet and a chain in my hand.Then, after a long time, quiet.I did not know what the quiet meant. I sat in it and I waited and I told myself that waiting was the only useful thing available to me and I believed that and I sat with my hands in my lap and I waited anyway and it was the hardest thing I had done in a very long time.The candle on the table had burned down to a stub by the time I heard footsteps in t

ELOWENI woke to find that there had been a fight in the fortress. I lay in my bed in the grey pre-dawn and listened to the sounds coming through my chamber walls and understood that something significant had happened in the night and that nobody had thought to tell me.This was not new. The shape of my life in Ravenshallow had always been this. The significant things happened and then I was informed of them afterward, in the carefully edited versions that Thane considered appropriate for his younger sister. It had been this way since I was fourteen and it had not changed simply because I was no longer fourteen.I dressed myself before my maids arrived. I did not want their careful faces this morning. I wanted information and they would not have it.Morwenna would have it. †††††††††††††††††††††††††She was in the small eastern courtyard when I found her, sitting on the low wall near the herb garden with a cup in her hands and the look of someone who had not sle

THANEThe dream came in the deepest part of the night when the mind has run out of defenses against itself.I knew it was a dream. Some part of me, the part that had learned to stay alert even in sleep after years of Julius arriving unannounced at the edges of rest, recognized the quality of it. The too-vivid color. The way the Sanctuary receiving room was itself and not quite itself simultaneously, the proportions slightly altered, the light coming from no source I could identify.I knew it was a dream and I did not leave it. †††††††††††††††††††††††††She was standing at the window with her back to me.Her hair was down. I had never seen it down. In the weeks and months of watching her move through this fortress she had always worn it braided or pulled back, a practical arrangement that kept it contained and out of her way. Down, it fell past her shoulders, red in the dream light, longer than I had realized and slightly wavy where the braid had held it throu

ROWENASome days later, Thane sent word through Sefa at midday.Not through Eldra. Not through Celdric. Through Sefa, which told me it was something that required care rather than urgency and that whoever was delivering the message had thought about how it would land.The note was brief. Four words.Come to the east wing.No signature. He did not need one. I had been in this fortress long enough to know his handwriting by now, the compressed efficiency of it, letters that took up no more space than they needed to.I set down what I was doing and I went. †††††††††††††††††††††††††He was standing in the corridor outside one of the east wing's smaller rooms when I came around the corner. Alone. His coat was dusty at the shoulder the way coats got when you had been outside in the mountain wind and he had the look of a man who had been waiting and was relieved the waiting was over.He looked at me when I came around the corner and he said nothing for a moment.Then

ELOWENThane was different at breakfast.I could not have said how. Nothing about him had changed in any way I could point to. He sat where he always sat and ate what he always ate and spoke to Oryn about the scout deployment with the same flat efficiency he brought to everything. But there was something underneath it, a quality I had not seen in him since before our father died, something that made the air around him sit differently.I watched him for a moment longer than I meant to. Then I let it go, because I had my own morning to get through and Thane being lighter than usual was not a problem that required my attention.I found Morwenna in the small eastern courtyard, where she usually was at this hour, sitting on the low wall with a cup in her hands. †††††††††††††††††††††††††"You look tired," she said, when I sat down."I did not sleep well.""Celdric," she said. Not a question."Partly." I looked at the mountain. "I keep going over the conversation in th