All Chapters of Bound by the Cursed Moon: Chapter 551 - Chapter 560

, Point of View: Kieran (Male Lead)"You touched my wrist yesterday, Dorian, and by midnight it had grown. Tell me the truth, right now. What did you do to me? Do not soften it. I am tired of soft."I am Kieran, and I would have stepped between them if Rhen had not caught my sleeve.We were in the old grain store behind the meeting house, because Wenna wanted a room with no windows and thick walls. Briar sat on an overturned crate with her sleeve rolled up. Sable stood behind her. Rhen stood beside me, her fingers tight on my arm. Wenna and Tam leaned against sacks of barley like two crows on a fence.Dorian knelt in front of my daughter. His hands were not steady. "I did not mean to.""That is not an answer.""Then here is a better one." He took a breath. "At the meeting house, when you stood up for Alden, you swayed. I caught your wrist. That is all I did. But I have a limitation, Briar, and I should have told you.""A limitation?""Since the old site, I can open bindings. I cannot

Point of View: Kieran (Male Lead)"Papa, you promised you would let me speak for myself. So why are you holding my door shut? Your hand is on the latch. I can see it. Move."I am Kieran, and I looked down at my own hand as if it belonged to a stranger.It was nearly midnight. Hollow Ash lay quiet under a thin moon. Wenna's riders had drawn a rope circle around Alden's house, tied with gray ribbons, and Briar was staying inside it, in the room beside her mother's. She stood in the doorway in her nightclothes, arms folded, with a look I had seen on my own face in the mirror."I am only keeping watch," I said."You are keeping me in.""Briar, you walked a mile in your sleep last night.""And Tam is outside my window with a lantern. And Sable is in the next bed. And the Keepers have a rope around the house. I am not going to wander off." Her voice softened. "I want to talk to Wenna. Alone. Not to ask permission. To ask questions. And I cannot do it with you behind me like a wall."My jaw

Point of View: Kieran (Male Lead)"Maren was twenty five when she died. You are twenty three, Briar. Do the sum yourself, because nobody else in this village has the courage to say it to your face."I am Kieran, and I stopped dead among the reeds with one hand on my sword, ready to do something I would regret.Rhen had told me to stay ready with the rope. So I had followed my daughter at dusk, a long way back, as quietly as a big man can. She sat on a flat rock by the river with her arms around her knees. Tam Ash stood over her, fists tight, gray cloak snapping in the wind."Go away, Tam.""No. Someone has to be honest. Your father looks at you as if you are made of eggshells. Your mother cries when she thinks you cannot hear. They are all lying with their faces."It struck me like a stone. I did not move."And you are not?" Briar said."I am the only one who is not." His voice cracked. "I watched my grandmother weep over Maren's journal every year of my life. I will not watch her do

Point of View: Kieran (Male Lead)"Go back, Briar. Please. If you come any closer, it will hear your heartbeat, and then I cannot keep it calm. I have not slept in eighteen days. I cannot hold it again."I am Kieran, and I had my hand on my sword before I even understood the voice.The old quarry was a wound in the hillside. White dust lay over everything, and the walls rose in broken steps. We had left the ponies with Tam, and the cart at the mouth with Alden, who had refused to be left behind and refused, even more fiercely, to be carried in. Rhen had stayed with him. She had looked at me before I went. I knew what her look meant. Go. Keep your hands open.So I walked behind my daughter into the cave with my hands open and every muscle screaming.Inside, a blue lantern glowed on a rock. A young man sat beside it, cross legged on a blanket, thin as a rake. His yellow hair was dull with dust. His eyes were sunken and red. He held a clay bowl in both hands, and he was humming."Jory,"

Point of View: Kieran (Male Lead)"You taught me, Briar. Every night you came and sat beside me and told me that you were afraid. Do you not remember? I remember all of it."I am Kieran, and I could not feel my hands.We knelt in a ring around the clay bowl in the pale light of the blue lantern. Jory sat on my left, swaying with exhaustion. Alden sat propped in a chair beside him, wrapped to the chin, his eyes bright. Rhen knelt on my right, her fingers wound through mine. Sable, Dorian and Tam completed the circle. Briar knelt directly across from me, and I could not look away from her.It was dawn. We had slept an hour and woken with one purpose.The seed pulsed in the bowl. It had grown to the size of a plum, and the glow was warm and soft, like a candle behind a curtain."I do not remember," Briar said. Her voice shook. "I walked in my sleep. I do not know what I said."You said you were afraid of the dark, said the voice. It was her own voice, gentle and small. You said your arm