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Chapters (64)
  1. Front Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  6. Pronunciation Guide
  7. Prologue
  8. Part One
  9. One
  10. Two
  11. Three
  12. Four
  13. Five
  14. Six
  15. Seven
  16. Eight
  17. Nine
  18. Ten
  19. Eleven
  20. Twelve
  21. Thirteen
  22. Part Two
  23. Fourteen
  24. Fifteen
  25. Sixteen
  26. Seventeen
  27. Eighteen
  28. Nineteen
  29. Twenty
  30. Twenty-One
  31. Twenty-Two
  32. Twenty-Three
  33. Part Three
  34. Twenty-Four
  35. Twenty-Five
  36. Twenty-Six
  37. Twenty-Seven
  38. Twenty-Eight
  39. Twenty-Nine
  40. Thirty
  41. Thirty-One
  42. Thirty-Two
  43. Thirty-Three
  44. Thirty-Four
  45. Thirty-Five
  46. Part Four
  47. Thirty-Six
  48. Thirty-Seven
  49. Thirty-Eight
  50. Thirty-Nine
  51. Forty
  52. Forty-One
  53. Forty-Two
  54. Forty-Three
  55. Forty-Four
  56. Forty-Five
  57. Forty-Six
  58. Forty-Seven
  59. Epilogue
  60. Excerpt from The Sun and Its Shade
  61. The Night and Its Moon Playlist
  62. Acknowledgments
  63. About the Author
  64. Back Cover

The barn was traditional in its structure. The lower level was meant to house animals, with an upper loft intended to store their hay. The two enormous doors on the front opened and closed for cattle and horses, both of which had been shut in for the night. A human-sized door on the side that divided into two parts, top and bottom, was the entrance she angled for. She knew it to be common for barns to have such a division on their doors in case farmers might need to toss in food or check on the animals without risking a lamb too small and nimble to grab, or a flock of chickens rushing out. Nox reached the handle of the door, and each movement took her every drop of strength. If the rusted handle let out even the smallest sound, she was relatively sure she’d faint. How heroic.

She rallied her heroism and turned the door’s handle with painful slowness. Unfortunately, only the top division opened.

“Fucking goddess-damned piece of—”

She felt quite confident that opening this door was the most frightening thing that anyone had ever done in the history of the continent, and it was outright offensive that she had to do it not once but twice. Her string of obscenities was contained to the quietest of furious whispers. She steeled herself to try again.

“Come on, you spineless jellyfish,” she said, cursing herself as she summoned her grit.

She didn’t mind the strong wave of hay and animal smells that hit her as she slipped into the barn. There was an honest, bucolic reassurance carried on the scent of farm life. The homeyness was comforting, which was a feeling she needed if she was to make forward progress tonight. Choosing her steps carefully, she closed the top half of the door but left the bottom half ajar should she need to make a quick escape. She didn’t need the light of the moon seeping in and alerting them to the intrusion any more than necessary.

Nox crept closer to a ladder that she was just barely able to make out in the center of the barn. A horse in one of the stalls, obscured by the dark of the night, made a shuddering noise, perhaps shaking a fly from its skin. The sound caused her to pause, but the voices above continued, unbothered. There was something unsettling about the way they were talking. She wasn’t close enough to understand what it was, but the voices were something distinctly unlike the common tongue.

Nox’s mind flicked like a candle illuminating the dark of her memories.