carried your

y my mother a

at, and the smoke still hanging in the air seemed to hold i

es

ears I believed

she wa

lied

tected

sound itself hurt them. He didn't defend himself. He just stood there and absorbed it, the way he alway

hat happen

t h

e with s

e truth, you ha

ted you

n now. "If I wanted to hurt you, I would

that he

toward the forbidden border, dragging Council prisoners and three of our own soldiers with them. Adrian's face hard

ming wi

N

aid she mig

thern border isn't a forest trail, Ele

ll be th

how much you tried to smother it, and something in his expression finally

hat when yo

me from, and Adrian went very still, the color draining fro

on't cry, I'll protect you* - and I pressed my fingers to my temple, shaking, t

y, like he was afraid speaking too loud might s

ies do you have

o m

er stop loo

ev

htened me enough that I looked away first, unab

-

ed, and she hugged me hard enough to bruise before we left, her face pressed into my shoulder like she was trying to m

ear you,

oo

that Lila's parting look at Adrian had lasted a half-second too long, like she was measuring him against something only

d under my skin in a way that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with recognition - like the trees themselves remembered something my mind couldn't. *We're be

d in every motion, in the way he never let the distance between us grow past a few strides even while three separate attackers pressed him from different sides. When a gray wolf slipped

e treeline. "The Moo

the crescent-and-stars on his cloak, his movements unhurried in a way that made my skin crawl. He loo

en E

you kn

nows your name." His gaze slid t

taking her,"

rn crown is hidden - the one that can unite every bloodline that's ever hated the others." He smiled, and it didn't reach his silver eyes. "I want it too. Call it

that until I finally asked,

es

didn't

know whe

which was answer enough. "If we find her," I said, "you won't stop me

ugh for me to notice, his sil

ria

ll

n't good

nd, and he took it, his fingers warm despite the cold clinging to everything else in that forest,

re I could ask what he meant, the warmth of his h

-

mbols that lit faintly when my pendant came near, pale light tracing patterns older than any lang

t be possible,

was waitin

ent, a silence so total it felt like losing a limb, and then w

ifted out of the d

e to explain, dreams I'd woken from as a child w

ecided to, and she caught me the way you catch something you've been afraid to hope for. "My little moon," she whispered into my hair, and for the first time in

lder, and every bit of warmt

danger, not the border, not the fortress, not anything else in that w

" I a

emptied the groun

ber. The night you lost your memories,