“I’m ready, Jarod.” She pulls away to look up at him, more decided than she’s ever been in her whole life. “Let’s leave.”

“Where do you want to go?” he asks, a bit breathless, as he glances in the direction of the soldier barracks. “To our room here?”

“No,” Aislinn says, the word coming out harsh, rebellion streaking through her. “Not in an enclosed room like a Gardnerian. I want to take each other like Lupines. In the arms of the Forest.”

Jarod holds her hand gently in his like it’s the most delicate thing in the world, even though Aislinn can clearly read that what he wants is to pull her close and kiss her deeply. He gives her a significant look. “There’s that patch of wilds we both love. Just north of Voloi.”

Aislinn brings her other hand over their clasped ones, caressing him in turn as she looks up at him. This beautiful, patient, overwhelmingly kind love of hers. Her forever love.

“Take me there,” she says.

CHAPTER SIX

FIND THE MOON

Sparrow Trillium

Xishlon night, twenty-first hour

Sparrow stands before the full-length mirror in Mii Vun’s famed dress shoppe, stunned by the Xishlon transformation reflected in it.

The Xishlon transformation in her.

Gone is the drab servant garb and makeup-free face of the Western Realm. Because she’s no longer trapped in a world where her beauty puts her in extreme danger. But still, she knows her makeup is gloriously bold for her first Xishlon celebration—an intricate violet orchid drawn in a sweep along the entire edge of her face, her lips colored a deeper purple than their natural shade and dusted with violet glitter. And her lilac hair adorned with iridescent-purple Xishlon flowers.

But the biggest rebellion of all is the dress it took Sparrow over a week to craft, its design a celebration of the famous Noi book of love poems, Lavender Garden of My Heart, each poem steeped in the lore surrounding Xishlon’s thirteen iconic purple flowers. Her entire dress is constructed from silk roses, hyacinths, pansies, cosmos, and the rest of the fabled purple-moon festival blooms, its skirt long in the back, short in the front, her legs on display from midthigh down—which would have been both shocking and forbidden in Gardneria. Violet orchids twine up the length of her silk stockings and her delicate, plum-velvet shoes are decorated with hand-painted purple crocuses.

Sparrow’s nerves are alight to dare to be this brazen, but she refuses to be cowed by her past. Because here, in the Eastern Realm, women can wear whatever they want, their safety vigorously and mercilessly enforced by the mostly female Vu Trin. And she’s further emboldened by the rune blade strapped to her side, women bearing arms a common sight here.