All Chapters of Bound by the Cursed Moon: Chapter 561 - Chapter 570

Point of View: Rhen (Female Lead)"Mama, I am not asking for permission. I am telling you that I am walking down that road to the village, and if you stand in front of me, I will walk around you. Please do not make me."I am Rhen, and I stood in front of her anyway.The morning was cold and gray at the edge of the quarry. Briar had her boots laced and her cloak tied tight at her throat. Her face was pale, but her chin was high. Behind her, Sable held a water skin and looked like someone hoping to be stopped."Briar," I said. "Look at me.""I am looking.""Then you can see that I am scared too.""Then come with me.""If we walk into that village angry and with nothing in our hands, we give Petra everything she wants. She will say the quarry child has lost her mind. She will say I have lost mine.""She is counting down to something, Mama. Hush said so.""Hush is a seed that has been alone for four hundred years. Brave, yes. Honest, I think. But a council will not take its word."Kieran

Point of View: Rhen (Female Lead)"You waited twenty years to listen to me, Rhen. Twenty. And now you want my help in the dark, with your daughter's life on the table. Tell me why I should open that gate."I am Rhen, and I deserved every word of it.Dusk had settled over the village like a gray shawl. Sable and I had left the horses a half mile back and crept along the hedgerow, bent double, my knees complaining. Hesper's orchard lay at the very edge of the village, a tangle of old apple trees leaning over a crooked fence. The gate was shut. Behind it stood a small, bony woman in a man's coat, with a lantern in one hand and a pruning hook in the other."Hesper," I said. "Please.""Please." She turned the word over like a sour apple. "That is new.""I know.""Do you remember the spring of the long frost? You stood in the council room and told me I was seeing shadows. In front of everyone. In front of Petra."My face burned. "I remember.""I told you the lamp in the high window burned e

Point of View: Rhen (Female Lead)"Rhen, I let you believe I was only an old man with a bad chest. I was never only that. I lied to you for forty years. Sit down, and do not cry yet."I am Rhen, and I was already crying.Dawn came pale and thin over the quarry. I had not slept. Wren had said what she said, and since then nobody in the cave had been able to look at the cart without flinching. I had carried a bowl of broth to Alden before the others woke. Now I sat on a stool by his bed of blankets, and his hand was lighter than any hand should be."Alden," I said. "You are a thread.""I am." He said it plainly, the way he said everything. "I have been since I was nineteen years old. I did not know the word for it. I only knew that some nights my chest pulled toward the east, like a fish on a line.""Toward the quarry.""Toward the cave. Yes." His eyes were wet. "Child, I should tell you who she was. Maren. And Petra. And me."I waited. My hands lay still in my lap, though my heart was

Point of View: Rhen (Female Lead)"Mistress Rhen, I am sorry. I am only the runner. But the council says the girl comes to the tower by dusk, or the village comes to the quarry with torches."I am Rhen, and my knees nearly gave way.Afternoon sun lay thick and gold on the quarry road. A boy of fourteen, Perrin, the baker's son, stood at the bottom of the slope holding a rolled paper with a heavy red seal. His hands were shaking. Behind him, in the dust, stood perhaps forty villagers.I knew every face. The miller. Two of my own cousins. Old Tobias, who had carried me on his shoulders at a harvest feast. They looked uncomfortable, scared, and very, very determined."Perrin," I said. "Put the paper down.""I cannot, Mistress. I am to put it in your hand.""Then put it in my hand."I broke the seal. I knew the writing before I read the first word. Petra's tight, upright script marched across the page.By order of the council. The child Briar, daughter of Rhen and Kieran, is summoned to t

Point of View: Rhen (Female Lead)"You came, Rhen. And you brought them all. How very brave. Come up, then. The door is open. It has been open since the seventh stroke of the bell."I am Rhen, and I did not like how easy it sounded.Night had fallen hard and black over the village. The tower rose at the end of the lane, narrow and gray, with one lit window at the top. A small iron bell hung above the door. Every few breaths it swung and struck once, with nobody touching it. The sound was flat and heavy. It went through the soles of my feet.We stood at the foot of the steps. All of us. Briar and Kieran. Sable and Dorian, pale and steady. Tam with his coil of cord. Wren with her satchel. Hesper, who had met us at the lane's end with a lantern and a pruning hook and a fierce look. Jory had come, too, on Sable's arm. And in a chair carried between Kieran and Tam, wrapped in his blanket, sat Alden."Nobody goes alone," I said. "I want to hear everyone promise it.""Promised," said Briar.