Dead Moons Rising: First in the Honest Scrolls series

by Jack Whitney

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  IT HAD BEEN three weeks since Draven had heard from Aydra.

  Three weeks since she’d left to take care of her brother.

  Draven knew she didn’t want him checking in. He would give her the independence she needed to take her throne back, to take back her kingdom. If she had died, he would have heard. He worried for her, but he knew she could take care of herself.

  However, it was the letter he’d received from Dorian the day he and Balandria had set out for Magnice that made his stomach turn.

  Aydra was sick.

  He’d never ridden so quickly across the land to his enemy kingdom before.

  At the castle gates, he pulled his sword on the Belwarks that tried to stop him from going in, barging through the doors and bounding up the stairs and hallways to her room.

  “She’s not there,” came Dorian’s voice upon Draven’s reaching her floor.

  Draven froze and turned to face the young prince, but did not get a word out upon first seeing him.

  Dorian’s round eyes had darkened bags beneath them. His cheeks looked sullen, his usual sun-kissed face now paled. Draven’s fist tightened in on itself, and he started to step towards him.

  “Little prince,” he acknowledged. “You look terrible,” he said as he gave him a hug.

  Dorian clapped him on his back, and then pulled away, shaking his head. “It’s been a long month.”

  “What happened?”

  Dorian rubbed his neck, staring past Draven towards the other end of the hall. “After Aydra attacked Rhaif, the guards took her. She was locked in her room, only myself and Nyssa able to go in and see her. Lex has not been able to see her until earlier today. Rhaif… he’s scared. The castle has been a fortress—”

  “She should have killed him,” Draven growled.

  “If she had, she would already be dead,” Dorian interjected. “The Bedrani Council has taken over while he heals. They would not allow me to take my own crown.”

  Draven’s eyes narrowed. “Not allow you… What is happening here?”

  An audible exhale left Dorian and his eyes darted up and down the hall. “I’m not sure. But I do know you and Balandria need to leave. You should not have come. I have a feeling they’ll put you in chains.”

  Draven’s jaw tightened. “I’m not running. Where is Aydra?”

  “She should be back soon. Nyssa took her to our mother’s waters to see if it would help heal her.”

  “I’ll go there—”

  “No—” Dorian pulled on Draven’s arm, and tugged him back around. “You’ll hide. Here. In her room. Wait for her. Do not go galavanting off into these halls without myself, Nyssa, or Lex. Where is Balandria?”

  “With the horses,” Draven replied. “You cannot expect me to sit in waiting while my love is hurting—”

  “If you want to see her again without bars between you, you will,” Dorian demanded.

  Draven’s hand clenched and unclenched at his side. “What is wrong with her?”

  “She’s sick,” Dorian said.

  “What do you mean sick?” Draven asked.

  “I mean one day she’s fine, and the next she is vomiting all over the castle,” Dorian said. “Something is wrong.”

  Draven’s heart plummeted. “What do the surgeons say?”

  “Nothing. They tell her she has eaten something wrong. Idiots. They put her on liquids to try and stop the turning of her stomach.”

  Draven’s chest constricted, and he swallowed hard. Dorian clapped his shoulder again.

  “Wait for her here,” he repeated. “I’ll find your Second.”

  Arbina’s waters, if anything, made the turn of Aydra’s stomach worse. She’d scrambled to the edge of the Throne room and vomited off the side of the cliff the second her body had been wrapped in the water.

  Nyssa watched her helplessly, holding her hair back and then wrapping her arms around Aydra’s shoulders when she finally sat back. Lex was with them, standing guard so that no one else entered or found out they were there.

  Aydra didn’t understand what was happening to her. She felt dizzy, couldn’t keep anything down. Her stomach felt of knives ripping through her flesh. Her phoenix had come to her both times she’d visited the Throne room, and its few moments of reprieve, she’d found herself relaxed in its cold flames.

  Nyssa helped her clothe herself, and then she and Lex escorted her back through the halls, Aydra’s hood up on her the entire time they walked. Aydra paused in front of her door, tired of the attention for the day.

  “I will be fine, Nys,” Aydra assured her. “Go. You have to continue on as if nothing is wrong.”

  Nyssa took a deep breath and nodded. “I’ll come back tonight with the liquids.” She pressed her forehead to Aydra’s just briefly, and then turned on her heel down the hall.

  “Will you allow me to stay?” Lex begged.

  Aydra sighed and nodded. “You’re the only one here not pitying me at every second. You can stay.”

  Lex smiled and kissed Aydra’s forehead. “I’ve never been the pitying type.”

  Aydra opened the door to her room then, and she nearly tripped at the sight of someone standing up from her bed. A knot formed in her chest, and her knees weakened.

  “Draven.”

  He bounded across the room to her, and she nearly jumped into his arms. His grasp tightened around her and he whirled her off the floor.

  “Are you real?” she whispered into his hair.

  Her feet hit the ground, and he pulled back, his hands resting on her cheeks. Urgency swam in his gaze as it darted over her face. He opened his mouth to speak, but words didn’t emit, and he pulled her into his chest again, hugging her flush against him.

  “And I’ll come not pity you later,” Lex said from the door. She heard the click of it closing, but she didn’t turn to see Lex leave.

  Aydra pulled back to see Draven’s face again. A small smile rose on his lips as he pushed her hair back.

  “Hi,” he whispered.

  Her breath skipped. She melted her head into his palm and inhaled deeply.

  But suddenly the reality of their situation filled her head, and her heart tightened in her chest. “You shouldn’t be here,” she told him.

  “Why does everyone keep telling me this when no one told me not to come?” Draven argued.

  She almost laughed, the first true smile she’d felt in a month. “Would that have stopped you?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Not at all, but it would have been nice to have known what I was walking in to.”

  She leaned up then and felt her body melt into his grasp. “I missed you,” she whispered.

  His nose nudged hers, and his fingers wrapped into her hair. “I missed you,” he managed.

  Her heart bled at having him in her arms again. She pressed her smiling lips to his, savoring the taste of him on her skin after so long.

  —Her stomach turned. She let go of him at an instant and ran all the way across her room to the window, where she vomited out into the open air. A cold sweat broke on her forehead as she grabbed the stone.

  “So… you are sick,” Draven said as he crossed the room towards her.

  Aydra steadied herself against the wall and looked back over her shoulder to see him slowly walking her way, hands in his pockets. She swallowed hard. “Something stupid like that, yes,” she muttered, sinking her back against the cold wall. “I have vomited over nearly every inch of these halls. I feel dizzy. Sweating all over. My sister won’t stop looking at me like I’m dying.” She sighed and looked up at him, her head leaning back on her neck. “It’s all very annoying.”

  He looked as though he would laugh. “Only you would define being this sick as an annoyance,” he mocked.

  She huffed amusedly under her breath, and he kissed her forehead.

  “What can I do?” he asked.

  She shrugged, hugging her arms over her chest. “The surgeons say it is something I ate. But I’ve been like this a wee
k. Getting worse every day. I’m not sure there’s anything you can do besides wait for it to pass.”

  His weight shifted and he looked out the window. “Where is your phoenix?”

  “Ah… not sure. I see her shadow once a day at least. Where she stays the rest of the time, I’m not sure.”

  “Call her,” he said. “I have an idea.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  DRAVEN SENT A letter off with the phoenix without telling her who it was for. She didn’t question him. She was happy he was there, happy to have someone around her that would not treat her as though she were fragile.

  For the remainder of the day, and well into the night, he held her on the floor. Nyssa brought food to her room before night fell, but Aydra could hardly keep it down. The smell of it repulsed her, and Nyssa promised to bring up actual food instead of the medicined mush the surgeons had prescribed for the morning. When she left, Draven packed the pipe, insisting it would help with the nausea, and they sat together on the floor once more.

  He told her what was going on in his forest, about their inner gossips, the squabble two men had tried to settle over a woman that ended up choosing another woman instead of one of the men. He told her Nadir was waiting on her before going to the ships again, that they were scouting out things and watching their every move. They would know what they were walking into when they finally did decide to speak with them. Two more ships had arrived west of the reef, but they looked to be supply ships this time, only carrying foods and materials, not weapons.

  “What about you? You didn’t tell me what happened when you got here,” he said after a while.

  She stared down at their entwined hands. “I fought my brother. Took one of his eyes. Then found myself on lockdown by my own guard.”

  His arms tightened around her. “But you didn’t kill him.”

  Aydra sighed, still looking down. “I didn’t, no.” Her head shook as she contemplated her words. “Killing him would have secured the Bedrani Council taking over, as they already have in his absence. They don’t trust Dorian. I fear he will have a harder time getting his crown than I previously thought.”

  “I don’t understand how they can do that. It’s his crown.”

  “But they are the Bedrani Council. They represent the Dreamers of our land. You forget, there are only four Promised children. The only reason we have crowns is because Dreamers gave them to us. They can also take them away.”

  Draven sighed and sank his head against her temple. “You people and your politics,” he muttered. “We should kill them all and take over,” he added under his breath.

  Aydra almost laughed despite the pain that had just sharpened through her abdomen. “Burn the kingdom to the ground,” she muttered.

  “Purple, orange, and black flames lighting up the sky,” he said dreamily.

  She hugged his arms tighter around her and rocked into his chest. His lips pressed to her temple again, the tickle of his beard making her chuckle softly.

  Home surrounded her core, and she sighed into his embrace.

  The window burst open.

  Both of them shot to their feet. Draven grabbed his sword off the dresser, Aydra taking a candleholder off the desk.

  A whirl of wind concentrated in the window, black smoke building from within it. It moved inside the room, and then it dissipated as quickly as it had arrived.

  The Nitesh was standing in her room.

  The candlestick dropped from Aydra’s hands, and her eyes widened at Draven beside her. “You called the Nitesh?” she hissed.

  “You’re sick. Of course I called the Nitesh,” he argued.

  “But—”

  “Stop your babbling, Aydra Ravenspeak,” the Nitesh cut in.

  Aydra’s insides froze at her hiss. She swallowed hard and straightened up. “It’s really not that bad. He shouldn’t have bothered you.”

  “Nevertheless, he did,” the Nitesh said as she pulled her hood and cloak off and threw it into the chair beside her. “Sit. Now.”

  Aydra laid down in the bed as another pain shot through her stomach. She pushed it from mind, not wanting Draven to see the pain in her features. The Nitesh’s hands were cold as she pressed her palms to her forehead. A golden glow radiated from her hands and over Aydra’s body. Draven stood at the end of the bed, one arm crossed over his chest, chewing on his thumb on the other hand as he watched.

  “Don’t glare at me like that,” Draven muttered to her after a few minutes.

  “You called the Nitesh because I have been puking,” Aydra grumbled. “I am not dying.”

  “No,” the Nitesh agreed as her hands hovered over Aydra’s abdomen. “You are not.” Her nostrils flared at whatever it was she felt there, and her eyes suddenly grew wild gold in color.

  Aydra swallowed hard at the sudden bewildered look on the Nitesh’s face. “Nitesh?”

  The Nitesh rose slowly from Aydra’s bedside, her widened eyes never leaving Aydra’s stomach. And then she turned towards Draven.

  “Take me to Promregis,” she hissed. “Now.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  DRAVEN DIDN’T ARGUE.

  It was only a few hours before the sunrise. The only people in the halls were Belwarks and Dreamer servants waking for morning chores. Lex was sitting outside Aydra’s door in the hall when Draven emerged.

  “Draven—” her words ceased, gaze widening at the sight of the Nitesh behind her. “What—”

  “No time. I have to get her to the Throne Room. I could use the escort,” he cut in.

  Lex nodded. “Very well.”

  Lex led them through the castle, waving off any guards who questioned where she was going. Draven’s heart was beating hard in his chest, the look the Nitesh had had on her face when she stood now seared in his mind.

  When they reached the Throne Room, the Nitesh did not stop until she was standing at the front of Arbina’s pool.

  “Back,” the Nitesh warned. “Both of you.”

  They took steps back behind her, and the Nitesh plunged her staff so forcefully into the water that it swelled into a great tidal wave.

  The golden streaks on her skin glowed like nerves on the surface. The wave splashed onto the great white tree, and from its depths he saw a woman form out of the mist.

  His giver’s enemy. The reason his own maker was cursed.

  Arbina Promregis Amaris.

  He’d never seen her in her corporeal form. Long white blonde wavy hair billowed in the wind that had encircled the room. Her icy eyes stared at the Nitesh, and a slow smile spread over her beautiful face.

  “Nari,” Arbina called the Nitesh by her true name. “I did not realize you were the new pet.”

  “What. Have. You. Done?” the Nitesh asked wildly.

  Arbina picked at one of her pointed nails and raised a brow. “I don’t know what—”

  Lightning lit up the sky.

  Thunder cracked so violently that the entire castle shook.

  “The child, Arbina,” the Nitesh spat. “The child in the womb she should not even have.”

  Draven’s heart stopped. “What?”

  Lex grabbed Draven’s arm.

  “How many of your daughters have you given this ability to?” the Nitesh shouted.

  Arbina’s smile widened, and her eyes flashed towards Draven. “Finally. I wondered how many it would take before she found you.” Arbina began walking then, her figure dancing over the water’s surface as she continued to ignore them.

  “How many, Promregis?!” the Nitesh shouted again.

  “All of them,” Arbina said shortly.

  “Wait,” Draven cut in, stepping up from the shadows. “You’re telling me… Aydra is carrying a…” his voice choked on the word “child?” he finally managed. “My child?” His eyes darted between the women in the room, and he felt the blood draining from his face. “But how? How can she be with child? What—”

  “Ancient stories tell of a race of beings beyond our shores,” the Nitesh began darkly
. “A race of savages, power hungry and greedy, the same beings who have arrived on our shores now—”

  Draven and Lex exchanged a wide-eyed glance, but the Nitesh continued to speak, and they didn’t have a chance to ask her about the words she’d used.

  “—The stories say they grew children in their women’s bellies over a period of time, and birthed them as squalling babies. These children would share the nature of both their combined givers, a man and a woman.” The Nitesh turned to Arbina. “I will assume this is where you received such an idea.”

  Arbina smiled a sly, mischievous smile that sent a chill down Draven’s spine. “It is,” she answered.

  The Nitesh screamed.

  Lightning struck the tree.

  “You have meddled with Haerland!” the Nitesh shouted. “Meddled with the sanctity of this land! What will this child even be?!”

  “A child of greatness,” Arbina affirmed. “Born of the Sun and Darkness merged as one.”

  “You do not know what powers this child could hold,” growled the Nitesh. “You could unleash something so dangerous onto our kind that it kills every being in this land.”

  “Or saves it,” Draven interjected.

  The wind stopped.

  The Nitesh turned slowly, staring at him.

  Draven swallowed hard and shifted his weight on his feet. “This child… it could be what brings our inner war to an end. It could be the one who brings our races together. Unites our world,” said Draven.

  He deliberately stepped down the steps, his mind in a daze, heart beating wildly in his chest.

  “Draven—”

  He ran.

  He knocked down three Belwarks on his way up to her room, jumping between and over the Dreamer servants walking the halls, until finally he reached her room.

  And when he burst through the doors, his heart swelled at the sight of her sitting up in the chair in the moons light as her sister brushed her hair.

  His Queen.

  His best friend.

  His partner.

  His equal in this life.

  Mother to his child.

  Mother to the child of Sun and Darkness.