Dead Moons Rising: First in the Honest Scrolls series

by Jack Whitney

  The room stilled, Dreamers glancing between one another, but saying nothing in response.

  “You can get rid of them?” asked Grey.

  The three Infi men began to groan groggily. One of them shook its head, as though it were waking up from a blackout. Dorian grabbed slowly for his knife on his belt.

  “Get these people out,” he muttered to Aydra and Lex. “I do not wish for them to witness beating hearts being pulled from these lifeless bodies.”

  Aydra nodded before then looking around the room. “Go home. All of you. You’ve seen enough for tonight.”

  The people filed out quietly, until only Grey was left in the room with them. He refused to leave, and so Aydra had warned him of what was to come. She had Lex signal Draven that he could come inside once the others had gone.

  Grey tensed the moment Draven stepped in. “Why is he here? Has he come to claim his brothers?”

  “He is with me, Grey,” Aydra said pointedly. “And these creatures are not his brothers.”

  Draven’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything in response to Grey’s query. He simply stepped forward to Dorian’s side. The force at which he pulled each of the Infi’s heads up to look at them was abrupt. Aydra couldn’t stop staring at the shamed shadows resting in his features.

  He sighed heavily, nostrils flaring, and then he looked to Dorian.

  “You know what to do,” he said in a low tone.

  Dorian twirled the knife in his fingers as he stared at the creatures. “Hey Grey—”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” Grey replied.

  “You may want to cover your ears.”

  The noise of the first one’s piercing scream reverberated through the small shop, and a chill ran down Aydra’s spine. Dorian had pushed his knife into the man’s throat. Dark, nearly black blood spurted from the vein he had cut, and it poured out onto the side of his body, trailing over Dorian’s hands and onto his feet.

  Which was when the other two woke up.

  They shifted features at an instant. True forms coming the surface. Disfigured and molten skinned, red burns plaguing their faces. Their wails echoed off the walls, making Aydra wince at the ear-piercing sound of it.

  “You’re going to wake up the whole village, brother,” Aydra muttered as she hugged her arms around her chest.

  Dorian’s knife met the necks of the other two, and their wailing ceased—but they knew it was only brief if he did not work fast.

  “Quickly,” Draven said over his shoulder.

  “You could help,” Dorian argued as he cut the chest of the first.

  “What do you need?” Grey asked.

  “Three bags,” Dorian managed, pulling the first’s heart from his chest. He tossed the still beating muscle into Grey’s hands, and Grey nearly dropped it as he realized what it was doing.

  “What—“

  “Bags, Grey,” Aydra reminded him.

  She watched her brother work, the determined expression on his face that she knew he’d earned while on his time with Draven vanquishing those in the village towns. Draven was pushing him to do this on his own, as she was sure he’d done while he and Dorian had been on the road together. Grey brought forward two more bags for them, and Dorian took them from his hands.

  The blood spattered on his young features, sitting stark against his alabaster skin and large white blue eyes. His thick black hair was quickly matted, the tips of his bangs falling into his right eye. He had a firm clench of his wide mouth, teeth showing as he worked determinedly to get the heart out of the second Infi.

  The ribcage broke, and Dorian pulled the heart out, pushing open the bag on the floor with his elbow. The beating heart dropped inside it, and he moved on his knees to the third.

  —The Infi surged back to life.

  Its shriek made Aydra jump.

  The creature grasped onto Dorian’s cloak and yanked him forward. It snarled in Dorian’s face, saliva dripping from its pointed teeth.

  “Dorian…” Aydra said slowly, not wanting to interfere if he didn’t need it.

  “I’ve got it.”

  Dorian resisted the pull of the creature, and—

  His knife plunged into its neck once again.

  She watched him take the last heart, as as the bodies lied limp on the ground, the rope around them unfurled. Dorian sighed and sank back on his knees, apparently willing his breaths to catch after having to wrestle with them.

  “Look at that.” Draven gave Dorian a firm clap on his shoulder. “A king worthy of the crown not yet on his head.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  THE ORDEAL OF the Infi was exhausting on them. It was well past midnight by the time they wrapped the bodies up and stowed them away in the stables so they could take them to the Hills of Bitratus after the meeting. Aydra walked with her arm around Dorian back up the streets, and she sent him to bed, insisting he remember to wash himself up.

  Draven didn’t speak as they walked back into the castle. Once Lex left their side, Draven turned as well, and Aydra stared at the back of his head as he descended down the hall.

  “Where are you going?” she called.

  “My room,” he said simply. “I shouldn’t like to think the Queen wants to consort with the enemy king now that she thinks I’ve unleashed terror in her streets.”

  Her stomach knotted, and a sourness poured into her core. “How exactly did you expect me to react?” she said in a voice higher pitched than she realized.

  Draven stilled, and when he turned to look at her over his shoulder, she saw a fear and surrender in his eyes that made her weight shift. Her breaths shortened, but she swallowed hard and turned the ring over on her hand.

  “You once asked me a similar question,” she said slowly. “Did you not think such a thought would cross my mind?”

  “I asked you that well before—”

  “It shouldn’t matter when it was,” she cut in. She paused a moment, her body feeling numb of the positivity she usually felt around him, the equableness that normally filled her core. She felt as though her core were breaking, as though persons were stretching her in different directions all at once.

  “I worried about this,” she managed under her breath.

  “What?” he asked, turning full to face her.

  “That we would be forced to one day choose between each other and our people. That the mistakes of our past kings would come between us—”

  “Aydra, do you trust me?”

  The stern of his brows made her shift. She avoided his gaze as she pondered the question. He’d risked the love of his people to help her more than once. He’d not done anything to make her think he wanted her kingdom. The way he’d stared at the Infi creatures with sadness and fear in his eyes, with the betrayals of his predecessors on his mind, filled her thoughts. And then she remembered how he would look upon her face, smiling that smile that made her heart melt and her mind cease of worry. The way he would look at her… it was something she knew could not be faked.

  “I do,” she said upon meeting his sage orbs.

  A great sigh left him as she closed the space between them, and he closed his eyes upon laying his forehead against hers. She pressed her hands to his cheeks and kissed his forehead before taking his hands in hers once more, and then she led him to her room.

  There was no late night of lust on this one, no smoldering jokes or teasing arguments. Draven stripped himself of the bloodied clothes, and he got into the bed without saying a word. At first, she wasn’t sure what to do, how to act. But she sat up in the bed against the headboard, and he laid down atop the sheet with his back to her.

  She watched his body rise and fall, obvious he was still awake as he lay there in silence. And when he finally readjusted himself, turning over to face her, she reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. His eyes avoided hers, but he moved, and her entire body shattered when he wrapped his arms around her and laid his head against her stomach. She could feel the rapid beat of his heart, the tenseness in hi
s body.

  Her core wept for him.

  So she hummed the Wyverdraki song, absentmindedly allowing her fingers to graze over his back, tracing the jagged extensions of his phoenix marking on his shoulder blade and bicep, her other hand laying over his forearm.

  “Will you run?” he whispered after a while.

  She swallowed hard, feeling his arms tighten around her. “I won’t,” she promised.

  He exhaled heavily, and for a moment she thought he might not speak. But he sat up in front of her, and her core shattered at the sight of his struggling figure sitting before her..

  “Do you know how it feels to have people look at you as the Dreamers did tonight?” he asked in a rasp, meeting her eyes. “To be condemned for the mistakes of your giver, of previous kings who spread nothing more than ill-witted violence and terror into other parts of our world? To know no matter how much of a different life I may want for my people, that they will never be looked upon by others as anything more than traitors and thieves?”

  He paused, and she swallowed hard at the look in his eyes. His jaw was taut, frustration spread over his features. She could see the battle beneath the facade he so desperately clung to, the fight of whether he should go with previous kings or start a new journey for his people.

  “I don’t,” she whispered.

  He fumbled with his hands a moment, muscles straining to keep his core at bay, and she felt the wind encircle the room.

  “When Parkyr died… I wasn’t crowned immediately. There was pressure from the older generation to change tradition and choose a new king, one of Venari instead of Infinari. They thought me unworthy of the phoenix crown because I was young. I was challenged for my leadership, forced to execute one of my own in combat beneath our giver’s tree. Even after I’d won the title, they didn’t respect me, but those of my own age defended me. During the first Dead Moons of my reign, I took Dunthorne and Bael out with me to Duarb. Parkyr had only ever allowed me to go with him to the birthings once. Said he would take me when I turned eighteen. But he died when I was sixteen, and I didn’t know what I was going to find. What we saw… those blistered red-skinned creatures that barely resembled infants. Yellow eyes and wailing screams. I decided right then, I would allow none to live, that if an Infinari child was born and then marked of the Infi fate instead of Venari, that I would take its life, no matter how hard it might be. A few years later, we received news of the Promised crown being passed to the next. That you were crowned.” He paused and met her gaze a moment, and she could see the bite back of words on his tongue. “There was immediate pressure from the olders. They wanted to continue with Parkyr’s plan. They wanted… they wanted me to seduce you, to find the Infi hide in the mountains and ask them to invade your walls when your guard was down.” He swallowed hard, and her insides began to freeze again.

  “Aydra, I swear—”

  “Was it orchestrated?” she asked softly. “My falling in your forest?”

  “No,” he said as his eyes met hers.

  “Draven—”

  “I swear on my life,” he affirmed.

  The wind whipped around the room with his stare, and then he sighed heavily, shaking his head. “I always told myself I could be better than the greed of my predecessors, that I could lead our family into prosperity and belonging without the need of war and invasion. That we could reverse the curses of our past, no longer be the people the Chronicles said we were.”

  “How did you convince the olders to not invade with the Infi?”

  “I didn’t,” he admitted. His hand ran through his hair, and he sighed again. “Parkyr’s followers left us the night you fell in my forest.”

  The room stilled.

  She blinked, unsure of what he’d just said.

  “What?”

  His fingers tugged at the roots of his hair. “There is a faction of Venari, the older generation and followers of the old ways… They didn’t like my unwillingness to go along with the plans to seduce you and unleash the Infi. When you fell… they urged me to go through with it or kill you. When I refused, they left. I’m not sure where they’ve been.”

  The news made Aydra’s heart pause. She stared at the blanket, the moons light reflecting into her room and casting shadows on his grieving face. Her core hurt. She was unsure what to feel, what to believe.

  “Aydra, you have to understand…” he started again, “the pressures of what my people wanted, of the ridicule and slander bestowed upon us simply because of what we are… It’s hard not to go through with such a plan when you have been condemned for it before it even happens.”

  “So why haven’t you?”

  He sighed and looked at the bed again. “You,” he admitted, his eyes raising to hers.

  She stilled, her heart skipping in her chest. “Draven… tell me this wasn’t a dream,” she managed. “Tell me this was real. That you actually love me and it wasn’t just for some plan to take over the crown.”

  He stared at her, eyes narrowing, and he sighed as the wind died down around them. “If this is a dream, I never want to wake from it,” he whispered. “Strike me under the potion of night at an instant.”

  “That’s not an answer,” she breathed.

  “How do you suppose I prove to you my love is not orchestrated?” he asked.

  She fumbled with her hands in her lap a moment, contemplating the knot her core had woven itself into. The feeling of his skin against hers caused her breath to arrest, and she watched as he brought her knuckles to his lips, his hands caressing her own.

  “I once told you you deserved nothing less than someone who would burn this entire kingdom to the ground for your salvation,” he repeated. “Aydra, I know better than to think you’ll ever need saving or that you would ever allow me to try to even if you did. But… I cannot promise to never bring harm to your kingdom.”

  She felt the frown slip onto her face. He squeezed her hands, and she swallowed hard.

  “Why’s that?” she managed.

  “Because if ever it means vengeance for you, I will do it,” he swore. “I will burn this kingdom to nothing more than rubble against the cliffside. It will turn to ash and smoke beneath the weight of purple and orange flames. And not because of want of your brother’s crown or redemption of my giver. Those things I care nothing of. But you… I would light a match beneath your giver’s roots and bring this all down if it meant avenging you. If that isn’t proof enough of my love for you being real, then I am at a loss.”

  She stared at their entwined hands a moment before meeting his gaze again. The sincerity and ferocity in his eyes made her chest swell with something she wasn’t sure how to put into words. The knot in her stomach. The heat on her cheeks. The fluttering in her chest and equal passion in his words.

  She believed him.

  He swallowed again, and she watched as he squeezed her hands once more, eyes avoiding hers. “If you want me to leave—”

  “You asked if I trusted you,” she interjected. “I said I do.”

  “And do you still?”

  A lump rose in her throat, and she allowed the jagged breath to enter her lungs.

  “I do,” she whispered.

  She leaned forward, pressing her lips softly to his in response. He hugged himself into her arms upon pulling back, and for the rest of the night, they held each other, allowing their breaths to sync and be at peace.

  Her King.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  AYDRA AND DRAVEN were awoken the morning by Willow bursting into the room after knocking more than once. She was spewing incoherent babble that Aydra wanted to slap out of her mouth when she rounded the bed.

  Which was when she saw Draven in the bed by Aydra’s side and began to scream.

  “—guard! Intru—”

  “Shut up, Willow,” Aydra groaned loudly at her.

  Willow’s mouth closed, but her startled eyes and paled face did not waver. She shifted on her feet, nearly falling over the rug as Aydra rose from the bed.
r />   “But—but, Your Majesty—why—”

  “Who lays in my bed is not your concern,” Aydra spat. “You’ll keep your mouth quiet about it and anything else you see unless you’d like to find yourself falling out of the window to the Edge.”

  Willow’s mouth snapped up, but her eyes kept darting to Draven’s groaning figure now sitting up in the bed.

  “It is barely dawn, lady,” Draven grumbled in his rasp morning voice, rubbing his face in his hands. “Why have you come barging in? Don’t you know how to knock?”

  Willow’s arms crossed over her chest. “I did. Multiple times.”

  “And?” Aydra asked expectantly as she pulled her robe around her body.

  Willow straightened up. “The Blackhands are coming up through the streets as we speak. They will be on our doorstep within the hour.”

  Aydra’s stomach knotted. “Fucking curses of Durab,” she muttered.

  Draven fell backwards in to the bed. “Should have known they’d be early.”

  “Thank you, Willow,” Aydra told her. “If you’ll go and wake Lex, I would appreciate it.”

  Willow nodded, but didn’t respond. She gave Aydra a low bow and then turned out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  Aydra quickly grabbed a day dress from her closet and changed, throwing her hair up and allowing a few stray curls to fall from her thick updo over her face and ears. She shoved her day crown on her head just as Lex burst into the room.

  “My Queen—”

  “I’m ready.” Aydra started out the door, but paused to watch Draven leisurely pack his morning pipe by the window. “Are you not coming?”

  Draven shrugged. “Not my kingdom,” he replied. “If they want to see me, they can wait on me to go through my morning routine.”

  The memory of the night before invaded her mind at the sight of the shadows beneath his eyes. He did a double-take at the look on her face, and she heard him sigh heavily. “I’m fine, Aydra,” he muttered.

  “Liar,” she accused.

  A small smile slipped onto his lips, and he struck the match against the wall. “Get out of here, my Queen,” he said in a rasp. “I’ll meet you in the Great Hall soon.”