All Chapters of Forbidden Under the Blood Moon: Chapter 281 - Chapter 290

POV: WREN THORNE"Chain her, Lady Wren. Chain her now, or we will do it ourselves." Elder Gorran slammed his staff against the stone, and forty angry voices rose behind him. Maelis stood alone in the middle of the great hall, small and shaking, and she looked only at me.The hall smelled of wet wool and old smoke. Dawn leaked in grey through the high windows. I had slept two hours, maybe less, and my back felt like a bent bow. Kade stood one step behind my shoulder. He had not said a word since we walked in. He was letting me lead, and I could feel how hard that was for him."Nobody is chaining anyone yet," I said."A man is dead," Gorran snapped. "Pell died with her ring in his fist.""My mother's ring," Maelis whispered."Your mother, who is dead," a woman shouted from the benches. "Or so you told us."The hall burst into noise. Maelis flinched as if every shout were a slap. The ember glowed hot under my ribs, and for one ugly moment I wanted to burn every voice in the room quiet. I

POV: WREN THORNE"Do not look at me like that, child. I did not choose to be the voice. I was chosen when you were still in your cradle, and nobody asked whether I wanted it." Maren's words scraped out of the dark like a rusty gate.The cell tower smelled of damp stone and stale straw. A single candle burned in a dish on the floor. Maren sat on the narrow cot with her blanket around her shoulders and her white hair loose, and she looked a hundred years old. I stood at the bars with my hand on my belly. Selene waited at the bottom of the stairs, giving us the closest thing to privacy a prison offers."I did not come to be looked at kindly," I said. "I came to ask what you know.""I have told Kade everything.""You told Kade names. Twelve families." I kept my voice level. "You did not tell him why a ruined old elder would risk her neck for people who sent her to the dungeon."Maren's mouth twitched. It was almost a smile. "Sit, Wren. Your ankles are the size of loaves.""I will stand."

POV: WREN THORNE"Hum it for me one more time, Maelis. Slowly. I need to know why my baby kicks every single time you sing that song."Maelis stared at me from the window bench. The afternoon sun lay across her lap in a pale square, and her fingers were white around the edge of her shawl. "Wren, I do not want to. Every time I hum it, something terrible happens.""That is why I need you to.""You are frightened.""I am furious." I pressed a hand to my side, where the baby had just landed a hard little heel. "I am furious, and I am frightened, and I will not be either of those things alone. Please."She wet her lips. Then she began, very softly, to hum.It was a gentle tune, simple as a pebble in a stream. Rise, fall, a small turn at the end. I had heard it a hundred times in the infirmary, and always it had felt like a warm blanket. Now I listened with my whole body, and I felt the ember stir beneath my ribs. The baby went still. Then the baby moved, a slow roll, a shift from one side

POV: WREN THORNE"You came. Good girl. Now sit down before your knees give out, and let an old woman look at what she helped make."The voice drifted out of the dusk like warm smoke. I stopped at the edge of the clearing, one hand on Maren's arm, the other pressed to my belly. The old moon stone rose ahead of us, a pale tooth of rock as tall as three men, ringed by black pines. The sky above it had bled from orange to violet. A cold wind smelled of snow and resin and, very faintly, burned honey.Kade stood at my shoulder, his jaw tight. I had wax in one ear and bread in my stomach and a stone in my throat. Selene and Ronan were somewhere in the trees, I hoped. I could not see them. That was the point."I will stand," I called."As you wish." A shape moved at the foot of the stone. "Stubborn. You have your grandmother's chin."She stepped into the last of the light, and my breath caught.She was small and bent, wrapped in a grey cloak with the hood pushed back. Her hair was white and t

POV: WREN THORNE"Do not cry, little heir. Crying wastes breath, and I have only a few left to spend on you." Isolde's voice was thin as paper in the lamplight of the infirmary.I wiped my face with my sleeve. It did no good. Tears kept coming. The old woman lay on the narrow cot with her cloak cut away and a thick wad of linen pressed against her back. Kade had carried her all the way from the clearing, running, his boots pounding the frozen path. The healers had worked on her for half an hour. Then they had stepped back and shaken their heads."The arrow went too deep," a healer had whispered to me. "An hour, perhaps. Not more."Now I sat on a stool beside her bed with my swollen ankles aching and my hands wrapped around hers. The room smelled of herbs and blood. Outside the window, the night had gone full black."You should not have stood in the open," I said. "You should have hidden.""And let them have you?" She almost smiled. "I have hidden for twenty years. I am tired of it.""