A Touch of Moonlight (A Court of Moonlight Book 1)

by Zora Marie

  “How many more times are you going to do that before you remember to stop nodding?”

  “Honestly, I’ll probably won’t remember until my head has healed. I’ve always liked non-verbal communication. Tomilin and I even came up with hand signals to talk late at night.” She sighed and stared down at her bent fingers. They were a little longer in her fae form, but still just as mangled from being broken so many times. Sometimes she could feel how Jake had twisted and smashed their fingers until they broke, hear Tomilin’s whimper of pain as she straightened and bound them. “Jake broke both of our fingers when he found out, only a few on each hand at a time so we could still work.” Tomilin’s fingers had been worse than hers, bent and twisted around backwards. Her stomach turned at the image and she shook the memory off.

  “Why?” Fen sunk back down beside her and his hands hovered near hers, like he wanted to take them in his.

  Rina shrugged. “He was a paranoid drunk, so it’s hard telling with him. I think he just didn’t like not knowing what we were talking about.” She curled her fingers in fists and stood, forcing herself to think of the here and now as Dorn had said. “So, what do you think Dorn made?”

  Fen nodded slowly, as though processing her sudden change in mood. She knew it had to feel forced from his perspective, but she had to stop thinking about that part of her life so much or she would drown in it. It was like every time she got her head above water she was pulled back under, and you could only do it so many times before you wouldn’t come back up again.

  “It’s hard telling with Dorn. He’s actually the one who taught me to cook. Father can cook too, but he doesn’t very often.”

  “Really? Well, I’ll have to get you and Dorn to teach me sometime. The best I’ve got is cooking meat and a few veggies over a fire.”

  “Well, we’ll have to remedy that.”

  “Just don’t ask me to pick things from your garden, at least if you would like your plants to stay alive.”

  “Keep you from the garden as we do Arlen, check.” Fen drew a little checkmark in the air and chuckled as they headed for the dining room. The sound was like music to her ears and she had to fight off the urge to snuggle back into his side as they walked.

  35

  Fen

  Fen stared at the map in his father’s study after dinner, waiting for his father. His mind clung to thoughts of dinner. Rina had sat in her usual spot, on the far side of Arlen and Dorn. He longed for her to be back at his side like she had while he read to her. Dorn had made his special veggie pot pie—the one Fen had never been able to replicate no matter how closely he followed Dorn’s instructions. It hadn’t seemed as filling as it usually was thanks to worry and longing.

  Shadows pooled beside him and he glanced up in time to see Farin appear. His father didn’t bother with formalities. He just sat back in his chair with his arms crossed, a motion he made when he was about to use something as a teaching moment. “What would you do?”

  Fen’s mind raced to catch onto his father’s abrupt line of thought. He hated it when his father did that. “Depends, who else is siding with them?”

  “Dawn court is siding with fire and starrlight, but wants to wait until after the next council meeting to make any moves. Earth and Air are undecided.”

  “Then…” he trailed off. He didn’t want to admit that he would do exactly what they are doing. The idea of putting Rina in the crossfire and giving possible enemies information about her that could be used against her made his stomach turn.

  “Approach it as if you weren’t Rina’s mate,” Farin said.

  “I would do exactly what you have done and use Trazar’s own rumors against him. We need allies, not enemies.” He glanced over the map, recalling all the fortresses, fortifications, and weapons he had seen and been taught about. “Without counting on convincing Earth and Air, I would begin centralizing our forces at the palace. I would also inform the civilians around the palace to prepare to move. The population has gotten too large to bring inside, so I would speak with other city leaders, as well as Sealar and Sadoren about moving noncombatants out of the area. I would also ask them for any support they would be willing to give, preferably supplies and warriors.”

  “Good. Why did you choose our palace?”

  “Sadoren’s palace has short walls and Sealar’s palace could be easily surrounded by ships with limited escape capabilities. Our palace on the other hand was specifically built to withstand a siege and has escape routes that we hope the other lords do not know about, yet are easily defendable should they be attacked.”

  “Very good. It’s nice to know you’ve actually been paying attention.” Farin flashed him a grin.

  Clenching his teeth, Fen decided to ignore that comment. “So how likely do you think Lord Engar and Airin are to take our side? And don’t ask me what I think because I don’t know and you know them better than I do.”

  “I’m not sure.” Farin pursed his lips. “The fact that Rina is female plays against us, but the courts of earth and air have always been more accepting of female opinions. I’m hoping that the prophecy will play to our advantage. They also know how rash and cruel Lord Trazar can be. At the very least, they won’t want him to be the one controlling her.”

  “And them knowing I’m her mate will mean they’ll assume her loyalty is to us, which they won’t want either. So...would it really be best if she claims me if they don’t know I’m the prophesied king?”

  “That is the biggest question of all because I have no clue which way they’ll go. On one hand, it could be encouragement for them to take the side of the future queen and king or they may decide that they are completely against the two of you being their rulers.”

  Fen chewed it over. “If they decided that, they’d want to kill us, wouldn’t they?”

  “I’m afraid so, but we also don’t want allies that will become enemies the moment they find out, either.”

  “If I weren’t your son, you would tell them? So we know their true colors?”

  Hesitating, Farin sighed. “Yes. I want this to be your decision though. You’re both nearly of age and Rina proved today that she’s holding herself together better than most would be.”

  Fen frowned. She was doing well, yet he couldn’t shake those first few moments in the garden when she’d locked up. He’d managed then, but it felt like he should be doing more. “I don’t know what to say to her, especially when she gets that lost look in her eyes or her past comes up. It just seems like all her good memories are intertwined with bad—even memories about her brother.”

  Farin let out a long breath. “You might want to talk with Dorn. He worked with survivors of child abuse before things calmed down and we moved out here. He may have some advice for you.”

  “Really?” Fen asked.

  “Yes. He doesn’t talk about it much, but we saw a lot of it back then. Reshuffling the social structure and banning slavery revealed a lot of other problems that took years to overcome.” Farin sat back in his chair and stared at the shelf above Fen’s head.

  “What sort of problems?”

  Farin let out a long tension laden breath before answering, “The sort where we had to set up organizations to get females and children out of bad situations. Humans who were once slaves needed education, housing, jobs, and protected rights. Young females needed to be able to escape their families to break the social cycle that forced them to be ornaments meant to bear children. You can’t just make laws, you have to provide people with the tools they need to enact change. People, mainly males, will rebel against the changes. They may even try to kill you and Rina for it, and some may need to be put down. Change is not pretty, but things worthwhile seldom are.”

  36

  Rina

  Grabbing the leather bound notebook and pencil, Rina lit a candle with the dwindling fire in her room and headed for the library. She wasn’t sure why she was drawn to go there, only that she needed out of her room. It was late, or perhaps early, but everyone els
e in the house seemed to still be asleep as she crept to the intricate carved door.

  Holding her breath, she pushed the door open and was relieved to find it empty. A couple of candles sat on a small table in the middle of the room, waiting to be lit. She scanned the room as she went to them, taking in the shadowy shelves chocked full of books. With every step she took, she promised herself that she’d learn to read them soon. She just needed to master the task Fen had set up for her—writing the alphabet.

  Lighting the candles and settling into a chair, she set to work. She wrote letter after letter, over and over again, until they were as close to Fen’s as she could get. Her hand cramped and she flexed her fingers. Head aching, she let her eyes roam over the books. There were so many stories and things to be learned waiting in this room, she just needed the knowledge to access them.

  Movement caught her attention and she glanced over to find Fen peeking in. “Good morning,” he whispered, pushing the door open a bit further. He glanced at the notebook in front of her, a small smile curling his lips.

  “Morning. You getting ready to start breakfast?”

  Fen nodded. “Couldn’t sleep?” He asked, coming closer to look at her work. Silently, she slid the book toward him and he flipped through the pages of her scribblings. “How long have you been up?”

  Glancing at the candles and the pools of wax, she shrugged. “A few hours?”

  “These are good.” He tapped her most recent line of letters.

  A noncommittal noise worked its way out from the back of her throat as she shrugged. They were close, but not quite the same as his.

  Fen huffed. “They are not meant to be exactly the same. Everyone has their own flare on writing. They’re clear, concise, and neat, that’s what they are meant to be. So unless you’re planning on learning to forge my own handwriting, these are good—great actually.”

  Heat burned her cheeks and she looked away. “You’re just saying that because you’re my mate.” She tried and failed to hide her smile when she glanced up to find his eyes wide.

  “Say that again,” he whispered.

  “What? That you’re just—”

  “Not that part, the last bit.”

  Wrinkling her nose, she sat back in her chair. “Nope.”

  He clicked his tongue. “Ornery thing, are you?”

  She smirked, a warm giddy feeling crawling its way through her.

  “I would not lie to you about something like this, mate or not.” He tapped the line of writing. “Want to join me in the kitchen? You can practice while I cook?”

  “Practice what, I thought you said this was good?” She smirked when he glared.

  “I was thinking of writing out sentences for you to try sounding out and then copy down.”

  Rina shrugged and Fen scooped up the notebook and pencil before she could. He wrote as they walked and with each word he scribed, envy grew within her at how easy he made it look. He paused, tapping the pencil to his chin before scribbling out another line.

  Entering the kitchen he set the notebook down on the counter by the door and handed her the pencil. “Read the line out loud before copying it down while saying the words, it’ll help you memorize them so it’ll be easier to recognize them later.”

  Nodding, she turned her attention to the task at hand. Mountains of sausage links, eggs, and biscuits formed as she stumbled through line after line of random, strange sentences. Some things, like the and love, she remembered. Unfortunately, she had come to find that a lot of the words were not said the way they were written. The seemingly endless combinations of letters made different sounds when placed next to one another in a word.

  She rubbed her temples in an attempt to ease the throbbing in the back of her head. Fen scraped a mound of fruit from his cutting board into a bowl before pulling another batch of biscuits from the oven behind her.

  “Well, I need to take these to the barracks for the guards. Um,” Fen glanced around, “I’d invite you to go, but we’d need to let Dorn or the others know.”

  Rina smirked. Dorn was up, she’d felt the shift in his emotions. He’d even crept down the hall to check on them at one point, but hadn’t said anything. “Dorn,” she called just loud enough she knew he’d hear her from their sitting room.

  A few seconds later, he strode down the hall toward them. “Yes?”

  “Care if I go with Fen to deliver breakfast?”

  His lips thinned before he shrugged. “Go ahead, just don’t take too long. I’ll set the table while you’re gone.”

  “Thanks.” She hugged him before helping Fen load the food up on a cart he’d retrieved while she’d had her back turned.

  The first step out the back door relaxed something that’d been coiled tight in her all morning. The sky was shifting from the deep black of night to the warm blue of morning, a tinge of pink framing the mountains in the distance. Fen led the way to a forest path that was a little wider than the others.

  “Do you do this every morning?”

  “When we have guards around.” His lips twisted to the side. “Cooking is cathartic for me and feeding the guards shows a bit of appreciation for what they do.”

  Ahead of them, a huge cabin came into view and she stepped a little closer to Fen. A bird swooped past them and landed by the door in a flash of light. He smelled like the warrior she’d noticed in the trees the day before. “Good morning, Fen. Rina.” The warrior nodded to them both and held the door open. “Any news?”

  “You mean other than the fact that we’re apparently the object of prophecies? Nope, not at all. You guys haven’t caught anyone sneaking around, have you?”

  The cart clattered over the threshold into what was easily the biggest room Rina had ever seen. An antler chandelier lit the room in a soft glow, casting shadows across couches, chairs, and tables. Bows and quivers full of arrows leaned against the balcony railing above them. Her fingers moved of their own accord, itching to fidget with the fletchings of her own arrows.

  “Other than Watren trying to peek in on Amber? No.” A sawing snore came from one of the couches and Kender chucked a ball of light toward the sound. The magic landed with a pop and the warrior came up sputtering as Kender announced, “Breakfast!” Some groans and thuds followed from the rooms above them.

  Fen huffed a laugh. “Sounds about right for Watren. Next time, tell him he can come spar with me if he wants an excuse to hang around.”

  “I thought Amber didn’t like Watren?” Rina asked.

  Fen shrugged. “It's complicated, but the two of us have always gotten along well. Oh,” he turned back to Kender, “I assume someone let you know we’ll be moving the castle soon?”

  Kender nodded. “Ash did.” His gaze slid to Rina and softened. “How are you holding up? Heard you took a nasty hit to the head.”

  “Not bad.” She shifted from foot to foot, the need for her old bow and quiver eating at her.

  “Getting antsy already?” Kender quirked a brow at her.

  “She’s been up for a few hours,” Fen supplied as he unloaded the cart.

  “Really?” His head cocked to the side. Then he blinked. Realizing what Fen was doing, the warrior waved him off. “You two go enjoy breakfast, one of us can return the cart.”

  “Thanks, Kender.” Fen flashed him a smile and suddenly his hand was in hers.

  “Um.” She glanced at their hands then Kender as Fen led her back toward the door. “Bye.”

  The warrior smirked and she turned back in time to close the door behind them. She walked stiffly at his side, feeling a little off kilter. They’d just made it out of hearing range when Fen turned to look at her. “What’s wrong?”

  Her fingers flexed on empty air and she sighed. “Just missing having my own bow and quiver.”

  “Oh.” His brows raised. “We can fix that after breakfast.”

  “No, it's fine.”

  Fen huffed as they started for the house again. “If you already know how to use a bow, there is no reason to keep yo
u from having one.”

  “Fine.” Their shoulders brushed as they walked and she leaned into the touch, some part of her starved for the contact. The walk to the house was too long and too short all at once. Her time alone with Fen drawing to a close too soon.

  37

  Rina

  After breakfast, Rina cornered Arlen in the hallway. Fingers drumming on her leg, she swallowed down her worry at asking for something. It felt wrong to ask for something rather than muddle through making one for herself, but he’d promised and they didn’t want her wandering off—which was another matter entirely.

  “You mentioned—” Her muscles locked up and she had to force herself to take a breath. “No one mentioned what I should be doing today.” Her hand stilled at the realization that she’d chickened out.

  Cocking his head, Arlen surveyed her. “We wanted you to rest one more day, but if you think you’re up to it, we can focus on teaching you skills you’ll need in the future.”

  Rina nodded and bit down on her flinch. A distraction, especially one that would be productive, would be nice.

  “All right. Want to work in the library or outside?”

  “Outside.”

  Arlen nodded. “I believe Fen is about to head to the training field if you want to go with him. I’ll grab a few things and meet you out there.”

  “All right.” She turned on her heel and went in search of Fen. She caught him right as he was about to step out the back door. “Mind if I join you?”

  A small smile played on his lips as he glanced back at her. “Not at all.” He held the door open for her and she stuffed her hands in her pockets to keep from fidgeting as she passed. “What’s on your agenda for the day?”

  Rina shrugged. “Learning things I apparently need to know. You?”