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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

Ashyn shook her head. Anyone who left an offering was welcome to a fortune, but she never took hers because there was a chance it could be a curse. It seemed an unnecessary tempting of fate. So Moria let the village children take it, which was fine, because a curse didn’t count if you weren’t the one leaving the offering.

The children ran to the offering tree. It was set just under the eaves of the sanctuary, sheltered from the rare rains. Made of metal, the tree had fortune scrolls in place of leaves and a slotted hole for the offering. The shrine caretaker replaced the scrolls with shipments from the court priests.

Ashyn knelt beside the metal tree and dropped in a copper coin, hearing it clink at the bottom. Then she closed her eyes, selected a scroll, and handed it to the little boy Moria had chosen. He shoved it into his pocket to be opened later, so he wouldn’t miss the next part.

Moria waved the children away from the tree and stepped back five paces, coin in hand. She measured the distance. Then she pitched the coin. It sailed squarely through the slot and rang off the metal like a bell.

The children cheered, but the show wasn’t over. They went quiet as Moria pulled a dart from her cloak. She turned around and threw the dart over her shoulder. It flew straight through a scroll and pinned it to the wooden sanctuary wall.

The children whooped and cheered. Ashyn shot her sister a grin. Moria smiled and went to retrieve her prize.

“Leaving an offering is a sacred act, Keeper,” said a deep voice behind them. “It isn’t a child’s game.”

Two

Two

Ashyn winced as Gavril Kitsune stepped from behind the children, but Moria only said, “Yes, it is a sacred act, and so I honor the spirits by demonstrating the skills I have developed for the protection of my village.”

Ashyn swore she heard the whispery chuckle of the ancestors.

One of the older boys turned to Gavril. “The Keeper protects us from the spirits of the damned. Like your father—”

Moria laid her hand on the boy’s shoulder, silencing him. Gavril’s mouth tightened. One could think he was reacting to the insult, but Ashyn suspected Moria’s defense bothered him more.

When Gavril first came to Edgewood, the village had recognized the uncomfortable irony of sending a young man to guard the forest where his father had been exiled to his death. They’d tried to welcome him. But Gavril was as hard as the lava rock of the Wastes. He did his job and asked for nothing, expected nothing, gave nothing. Still, he wasn’t rude to the villagers . . . with one exception—the person who’d been the most outraged by his predicament and had tried most to befriend him.