The Moon Rogue

by L M R Clarke

  “She wants me to become the Hand of Nunako,” Mantos went on, “so the goddess can inhabit me—so she can take over my life.” Chest heaving, he squeezed harder. Fonbir’s arms tensed. “But I’m not the right choice. I come from a long line of power-hungry warlords: my father, my grandfather, and now my brother.” He shuddered. “How does Bomsoi know I won’t become drunk on the power of the goddess? How does she know that I’ll be different from my family when I don’t know it myself?”

  “You aren’t like them,” Fonbir whispered. He pulled one of his hands from Mantos’ grasp and laid it on his cheek. “You’ve never lusted for power. I trust you’ll do the right thing, and I trust Bomsoi. I’ve known her for many cycles.” He waved a hand over his eyes. “And she gave me back my sight. If she says this must be done, it must be done.”

  Those words, coming from that mouth, felt like a slap. Mantos batted Fonbir’s hand away and glared, his temper flaring. “So you’d have me sacrifice myself as well?” he snapped. “You would have me die for the third time?”

  Recoiling as though he’d been singed, Fonbir cradled his hands against his chest. His tail stiffened. He narrowed his eyes. “Mantos, that’s not what I meant.”

  “It’s exactly what will happen if I go through with Bomsoi’s plan,” Mantos said. His voice rose with every word, ending in a shout. “I’ll lose myself. I might as well be dead. Again. And my brother will die, and I’ll have no choice and no control!”

  Stung, Fonbir bit his bottom lip. He let his arms drop.

  “Mantos, I don’t have the answers. Bomsoi has said nothing about you dying.” He shook his head and reached for Mantos’ hand. “All know is that Oatutkubis, the Demon Who Rides the Sky, is upon us. But I have faith. Faith in Ethay and Apago. Faith in Bomsoi. And most important of all, faith in you.” Fonbir’s voice cracked. “You are good and loyal, Mantos. I know you’ll do what is right.”

  Heart growing cold, Mantos stepped back. He snarled. “Then you are a fool.”

  The words tasted bitter. Why must you push him away? he asked. An answer returned as an echo: Because you’re not good enough for him.

  “Mantos, I—” Fonbir began.

  “No. Don’t.” Mantos’ words were soft, but they cut like knives, just as he intended. “I think you should leave.”

  Fonbir’s hurt turned to fury. His white eyes narrowed. “As you wish.”

  Without another word, Fonbir swept from the room, his tail whipping behind him, though he didn’t slam the door. He was still a prince, and knew what was expected of him. He closed the door in silence. For Mantos, his absence sounded in place of the slam.

  I wish I was more like him, Mantos thought. I wish I had his grace, his ability to act his rank no matter the circumstance. But I’ll never be like that. I can’t act my rank at all.

  Alone again, he turned his face to the open window. The rain still poured. The sun couldn’t infiltrate the storm. The clouds were dark and churning. Mantos walked to the window as more of Bomsoi’s words returned to him.

  There is no Dark. There is no Light. There are only choices.

  He wasn’t sure about the first part, but Mantos was sure about the second. There were many choices in the world. Every day came with decision upon decision. What to eat, what to wear—and, most crucially of all, what to do.

  As he stalked across the room to the clothing trunk, a new coat of ice enveloped Mantos’ heart. He thrust open the lid and wrenched out as many shirts and tunics as he could. He pulled on layer upon layer of clothing that didn’t belong to him.

  Yes. There were many choices in the world. And Mantos had made his.

  With nothing but the clothes on his back, the chain around his neck, the rings on his talons, and the coldness in his heart, he crossed to the open window. He stared down at the empty courtyard. He gritted his teeth. He clambered onto the sill.

  Under the cover of the storm, he fled.

  Thank you for reading The Moon Rogue, Book 1 of the Arc of the Sky trilogy.

  If you enjoyed this book, would you please leave a review?

  Would you like to buy The Sun Emperor, book 2 of the Arc of the Sky trilogy?

  Grab it here: The Sun Emperor (Arc of the Sky #2) by L.M.R. Clarke

  Following is an excerpt of:

  THE SUN EMPEROR

  Arc of the Sky Trilogy, Book 2

  L. M. R. Clarke

  CHAPTER ONE

  The rain poured and poured and poured.

  The late Merish deluge hammered them incessantly, pulling their moods down with the sodden weight of their clothes. Emmy and her friends trekked along a road churning with mud. The baked ground of Middlemerish surrendered to the rain as the season began to turn. Emmy shivered as rivulets of cold water ran through her fronds, dripped from her horn crest, slithered down her face and under the neck of her tunic. The elation of her outburst seemed a thousand cycles in the past. Now they had only rain.

  Of all of them Rel remained most jubilant, though weariness made her body sag more than the rain. Emmy stayed in step beside her, reaching out when Rel stumbled. The wilt in her friend’s stature frightened Emmy more than the Masvams could. Rel was the strong one. She was unstoppable, but she was also exhausted.

  “Don’t worry,” Rel said, half-breathless in a way that made Emmy’s stomach tighten. “Bomsoi will ensure we receive a good welcome in Kubodinnu. I can’t guarantee feather mattresses, but at least you’ll get a bed.”

  In front of them, Zecha groused, rubbing his back. “Anything would be better than the ground.”

  Charo chuckled and slung an arm around his waist. Her reddish fronds stuck out in a haze. Water sluiced from her to him, melding them together like a two-headed drenched creature.

  “I’d take the hard ground over the cold embrace of death any day,” she said. “We were lucky. That could have been our fate.”

  “Never!” Zecha said, leaning into Charo. “With you around, I’ll never die. Even if a demon came to claim me, I think you’d fight them back.”

  “Oh, Zecha,” Charo said. “You’re a soft thing.”

  Emmy rolled her eyes as the two went about their playful flirtation, though she still smiled. Quite why folk insisted on giving each other compliments more sopping than her clothes remained a mystery. Why fawn upon one another? Surely truthful simplicity was the best course, such as being there when a friend needed you, just as Emmy was with Rel now.

  Exhaustion and the deluge slowed Rel more than any Masvam sword. By the time the grand spire of Kubodinnu appeared, hovering like a shadow in the haze of the rain, Rel’s boots barely lifted from the muddy road with each step. Emmy didn’t need to ask what made her so weary. It was easy to reason out. If I’d summoned a huge wind to carry us to safety, I’d be exhausted too, she thought. Rel had said nothing about the cost of her actions, but Emmy knew enough to slot the puzzle pieces together. They walked due to Rel’s exhaustion, not sailing through the skies on her magical wings. Nothing comes without cost, Emmy thought, magic or not.

  That thought sent her mind skipping through memories like a stone. Emmy bounced between remembrances of Krodge and the cost she’d paid for her relative safety and her apothecary’s knowledge. The ‘lessons’ she had learned on her knees and written in her blood, but also the lives she’d saved from the Breathstealer’s Plague or horrific wounds, all because Krodge had given her the knowledge to treat them.

  The thought, also, about the fact that she was alive and not drowned like an unwanted vaekit. Krodge could have killed her without anyone knowing. Or she could have killed her and dangled the dead hatchling from her claws as proof she’d rid Bellim of a demon.

  Krodge had done none of these things. The reason she took Emmy in still eluded her, and the fact she would never know why weighed on Emmy’s mind.

  Shaking off the feeling with the rain, Emmy returned her attention to Rel. At least she knew why Rel had taken her in. It was her duty. However, Rel had been compelled to look after Emmy’s welfare, where Kr
odge had not. Emmy had received more compassion and kindness from Rel in the short time they’d been together than Krodge had shown in her entire life. Emmy gave a tiny shrug. Folk were complex.

  She opened her mouth to ask how much longer their walk would take when Rel stumbled over her muddied boots. The older female went down like a sack of rocks. Emmy’s fast claws grabbed fistfuls of the drenched cloak around her shoulders, but Rel was too heavy. Emmy’s muscles burned with her intervention, but she at least managed to stop Rel’s face from planting in the churned mud. The rest of Rel’s body slumped into the quagmire.

  “Rel!” Zecha and Charo rushed back to haul her from the mud.

  Throat tight, Emmy spoke. “Sit her up.” Rel’s soaked head lolled on her shoulders, limp as a poorly-stuffed doll.

  “Rel,” Emmy said. She pulled her friend’s eyelids open and peered in. Rel’s eyes were glassy and unfocused. “Rel!”

  The sharp word hit as well as a slap, and Rel roused, her head still wobbling but her eyes clearer. She blinked and raised her muddy hands, her Althemerian bracelets shifting, before she passed her vision down to her mud-covered body. She was coated from torso to tail-tip, though the incessant rain was already clearing strips through it.

  “What happened?” she asked, her voice hoarse and thin.

  “You need to rest,” Zecha said. “You’re worn thin.”

  Rel made to protest, but Emmy folded her arms and shook her head. “Zecha’s right,” she said. “This healer was taught well, and this healer knows when someone needs to rest. We’re not going any further until I say so.”

  Looking from Emmy’s taut face to Zecha’s expression of concern, then to the worry on Charo’s brows, Rel didn’t try to protest. Instead she moved her claws in sharp flicks, trying to rid them of the mire. “May I at least rest under a tree instead of in this swamp?”

  Emmy’s face softened, and she motioned for the others to help her lift Rel. “Of course.”

  They pulled Rel off the road and toward the trees, resting her back against a tree trunk. In the vague shade of the leaves the rain lessened, though fat droplets dripped from the leafy canopy above.

  One caught Emmy right in the eye, and she winced. “For the love of the goddess, I’ve never seen this much rain!”

  Rel managed a thin chuckle, though she didn’t open her eyes. “Welcome to the end of Merish on Althemer. Don’t worry. The rain will soon give way to sleet and snow.”

  “Fantastic,” said Emmy, deadpan. “That’ll be even better.”

  Chuckling, Charo pulled the cloak from Rel’s shoulders and began to wring it out. “You could never survive in the north. In Haetharro it snows nearly all cycle around.”

  Zecha pouted and plucked the other edge of Rel’s cloak, following Charo’s lead and wringing rainwater and mud from it. “No thank you. Mr Charber always called me a sun youngling if ever he saw one.”

  He stopped as if surprised by his own words. His pout slipped into a genuine frown, and his hands slowed.

  Emmy squeezed his shoulder. “Wherever he is, I hope he’s okay.”

  It took a moment for Zecha to reply, as if he’d been swept away into memories of the male who had taken him in as a lodger and had become so much more. “I’m sure he is.” But his tone didn’t match his words.

  Soon enough they had made Rel as comfortable as they could in the damp undergrowth at the edge of the tree line. Emmy pulled what she could from what remained of the medicine pouches at her waist, and mixed a rainwater paste in the palm of one hand. She dipped the tip of one claw into it and tasted the concoction. The bitterness twisted her face, but she nodded.

  “I’m going to rub this on your gums,” she said as she positioned herself on her haunches in front of Rel. “It’ll revive you a little.”

  The older female grunted her reply and kept her eyes closed. She consented to Emmy’s ministrations with a sour face, though Emmy suspected it was more from the taste of the paste than anything else.

  “Truly disgusting,” Rel said when Emmy had finished, “but appreciated. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Emmy said. “Now don’t move from that spot until I tell you to.”

  Rel gave a soft chuckle. “Yes, Mistress.”

  The word made Emmy freeze, though she snapped herself from it quickly enough that she hoped Rel didn’t notice. How many times had she said those words to Krodge? The memory was less than welcome.

  To cover herself, Emmy plastered on a smile as she rose. “I’m going to look for something for us to eat. There has to be some shrooms or edible bark close by.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Charo. “Zecha can stay with Rel.”

  The only male among them gave a shallow bow and settled on the sodden ground beside Rel. The Bonebreaker’s eyes closed.

  “I’ll protect us from raindrops and stray blades of grass,” Zecha said.

  Charo’s face darkened. “Or the real threat of Masvam raiders.”

  Rel kept her eyes closed. “Most likely not this far inland. but I’ll appreciate Zecha’s kind company.” She cracked open one eye and turned it on Emmy, her tone turning serious. “Don’t stray too far.”

  Nodding, Emmy turned toward the dark of the forest with Charo at her right shoulder.

  They had walked out of earshot before Charo said anything. She slid her gaze to the side, eying Emmy. “You didn’t like it when she said ‘Yes, Mistress,’ did you?”

  Emmy placed her hands on the bark of a common redbark tree. Dampness came more from the humid air than any rainfall. “I didn’t.”

  She worked one talon into the bark to pry a chunk off, not looking at Charo. She sniffed the freed strip before chewing one end. It tasted of ash and moss, but it was as close to food as they might find in the absence of berries or shrooms.

  Charo placed a hand on Emmy’s arm and squeezed. “I understand.” She glanced around, gesturing at the forest. “Being in here brings back poor memories for me too.”

  The bark fell from Emmy’s fingers, forgotten as concern for Charo rose. It didn’t cross her mind that forests might be an unwanted reminder of how Charo came to be in her life.

  “You should have stayed with Rel instead of Zecha,” Emmy said, her eyeridges coming together in a soft look. “I didn’t even think.”

  Giving a shrug and a mild smile, Charo waved off her concern. “It’s okay. I can’t avoid forests forever. The memory’s not so bad. Just a little unpleasant to remember what’s been done to me.”

  Working another strip free, Emmy nodded. “I know how that feels.” As she peeled the red bark back to reveal the fresh light wood beneath, her expression morphed into a frown. “You never told me exactly what happened that day. Nothing beyond the basics.”

  Charo stilled for a moment, before reaching out to help Emmy pull more bark free. “And you told me you weren’t a Moon Rogue,” she countered, though she smiled playfully. “Looks like the truth about that is complicated.”

  The name ‘Moon Rogue’ stung, but not as much as it would have back in Bellim. Emmy shrugged and shook her head. “I didn’t know there was anything rogue-like about me when I told you that. Until Rel, I didn’t know there was anything remotely special about me at all.”

  Charo’s hands filled with strips as she worked her way around the tree trunk. Emmy watched her claws pluck at the softened bark, the tips burrowing into the wood underneath. Charo caught her look and returned it with a smile.

  “You’re more than magic powers, which you still need to explain to me,” she said. “But you’re special for a lot of reasons.” Suddenly the tree had Charo’s full attention, though she kept talking. “You saved me, and then took me in when you knew as much about me as a passing cloud. I could have been anyone, a thief or a killer.” Her voice stumbled on the last word, though she recovered before Emmy could say anything. “You treated me with more compassion than anyone else ever did. To me, that’s more special than freezing flames or chasing off hoards of Masvams.”

&nb
sp; Clutching her bark strips in one hand, Emmy pulled Charo into a brief embrace. Her friend’s thickening fronds were sharp against her unarmored cheek. Charo’s arms, thicker with muscle now than they had been when they first met, wrapped around Emmy’s back and shoulders. Such affection was still too unknown for Emmy to be comfortable, so she released Charo as soon as she could.

  “I’m glad you came into my life,” Emmy said. “I’m not glad you had to get stabbed for it to happen, but I am glad you’re with me now.”

  “I’m glad I came into your life too.” Charo’s voice faltered as she tried to speak. “I thought I’d died in ways beyond being stabbed. You and Zecha have showed me there’s still a reason to be here, and I’m very grateful.”

  She wasn’t crying, though her eyes glistened. Emmy slipped her hands onto Charo’s scarred forearms and nodded. Charo’s words cut to her core. She understood all too well how it felt to have little reason to live. The fact those words were spoken by someone so young cut even more deeply. Fourteen cycles. How could just fourteen cycles be so horrific?

  “Maybe one day you’ll tell me about your life before, hmm?” Emmy asked. “You know my pains. I’d like to know yours.”

  Charo’s gaze darted away for a moment. “I will tell you, one day.” Her eyes returned to Emmy’s. “Right now we need to find something more than redbark to eat, or we’ll have a very sad supper.”

  Chuckling, Emmy’s lips parted in a smile. “Agreed.”

  Thank you for reading Chapter One of the Sun Emperor.

  Would you like to buy The Sun Emperor, book 2 of the Arc of the Sky trilogy now?

  Grab it here: The Sun Emperor (Arc of the Sky #2) by L.M.R. Clarke

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  L.M.R. CLARKE IS A WRITER from Northern Ireland who writes Young Adult fiction, primarily in the Fantasy genre. She writes with inclusion in mind, especially LGBT+, and explores themes such as sectarianism, racism and other forms of discrimination in her books. She does not believe in shying away from difficult issues in YA. In fact, LMR thinks it’s vitally important that young people are given access to difficult topics through fiction in order for them to see the consequences of actions as well as the ability for characters to conquer adversity.