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Back Sea of Shadows
Chapters (61)
  1. Dedication
  2. Prologue
  3. Ashyn: One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Moria: Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Ashyn: Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Moria: Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-one
  24. Twenty-two
  25. Ashyn: Twenty-three
  26. Twenty-four
  27. Twenty-five
  28. Twenty-six
  29. Twenty-seven
  30. Twenty-eight
  31. Twenty-nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Moria: Thirty-one
  34. Thirty-two
  35. Thirty-three
  36. Thirty-four
  37. Thirty-five
  38. Thirty-six
  39. Thirty-seven
  40. Ashyn: Thirty-eight
  41. Thirty-nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-one
  44. Forty-two
  45. Forty-three
  46. Forty-four
  47. Forty-five
  48. Forty-six
  49. Forty-seven
  50. Forty-eight
  51. Forty-nine
  52. Moria: Fifty
  53. Fifty-one
  54. Fifty-two
  55. Fifty-three
  56. Fifty-four
  57. Fifty-five
  58. About the Author
  59. Back Ad
  60. Credits
  61. About the Publisher

Of course it was. They were the only fair-haired Northerners in Edgewood now that their father . . .

Moria stifled the thought and raced after her sister. When she reached the end of the road, she caught sight of yellowish fur running around the next corner.

She whistled, but Tova didn’t come back. She ran after them and again she got to the road’s end just in time to see a flash—of both figures this time, her sister and her hound, running like the spirits of the damned were chasing them. Running toward the forest.

“Ashyn! Tova!”

They didn’t stop. Behind her, she heard that now-familiar snarling, moaning shriek, and she turned to see a twisted figure in an open doorway. A shadow stalker in human form. It lunged at her. She wheeled and tore off after Ashyn.

Ashyn: Fourteen

Ashyn

Fourteen

“She’s not coming back, is she?” Ronan said as he moved his playing piece. “She doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

Because you used her blade to kidnap me, Ashyn wanted to say. She’d forgiven him. Moria would not until he proved himself worthy.

“Is she worried about the Kitsune boy?” he continued. “I mean, yes, of course she is. But that’s what she’s thinking about. Him.”

Ashyn stifled a sigh and pretended to miss the question.

After a moment, he said, “They’re courting, aren’t they?”

Ashyn choked on a laugh. “No, definitely not.”

“But there is someone, isn’t there? A girl like that . . .”

A girl like that.

Ashyn loved her sister. And yet . . . It was not that Ashyn particularly wanted any of the young men who trailed after her sister. It was simply . . . well, simply that she wouldn’t mind a boy’s attention, if only to prove that she wasn’t completely invisible next to Moria.

It had started two springs ago, when a young bard came with the supply wagons. Ashyn still remembered him, with his dark eyes and long braids and quick smile, his pretty words and lilting voice. He’d seen Ashyn first and stopped midsong to stare. Then he’d begun to sing about her. He’d followed her from the village square, still singing as she blushed. That had felt . . . new. Wonderful and warm.

She’d walked all the way home with the bard singing her praises. Then Moria came swinging out, blade in hand, and told him to quit his caterwauling or she’d use him for target practice. He’d stopped singing about Ashyn then. And started singing about Moria.