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Back The Night and Its Moon
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

Amaris walked away from the temple, her feet carrying her of their own accord. Her legs felt numb as she descended the steps, rejoining the men. She couldn’t explain why, but she felt like she wanted to cry. It was as if she were waking from a dream. It was surreal enough that Amaris could convince herself it had never happened at all. She felt this with greater intensity as she left the smooth, holy walls and stepped amidst the shapes of men. Their exchange had come to an abrupt, dissatisfying end before she’d learned anything. Her companions flashed glances between their friend and the holy woman expectantly.

“So?” Malik was the first to speak, his voice ripe with anxious tension. His tone was hushed despite his eagerness in honor of their sacrosanct location. “Did the priestess tell you what we needed to know?”

“Yes,” Amaris answered as she led them away from the temple.

Gadriel spoke up next, forcing his voice to control his eagerness at the debriefing. They’d barely passed the line of trees before he pushed, “And? What did you learn?”

“Nothing.”

* * *

The men were not patient with her as she recounted her experience. Amaris thought she’d been agitated in the temple, but she had underestimated the men’s capacity for irritation. Their frustration over having not been present compounded with testosterone resulted in a rather unfortunate explosion of helplessness. The cross-examination that ensued was not particularly pleasant. Reever and Raascot alike found themselves pacing before her, throwing up agitated gestures with questions like “Why didn’t you ask this?” or “Why didn’t you say that?”

Amaris let them rant, idly wondering if outbursts like this were amongst the reasons men were not permitted in the temple. Sure, the paths forward seemed obvious to the boys as they stomped through the forest, retrospectively analyzing the events that had taken place at the foot of the Tree of Life. If they had been there, maybe they would have made more demands, and perhaps they would have learned even less, been discarded even sooner. Amaris had played the priestess’s game to whatever dissatisfying end it yielded. While Gadriel was furious and Ash was beside himself, Amaris felt relatively confident that she had learned something, even if she didn’t know what it was. She sat between Malik and Zaccai, who seemed content to watch their prospective counterparts storm about.

“She was beautiful,” Malik offered. It was a comment of admiration.

“She was.”

“And that tree,” Malik mused, more to himself than to the others.

“Have either of you heard anything about the Tree of Life?” She looked to Malik, then to Zaccai. Perhaps the men couldn’t communicate effectively with each other directly, but that wasn’t going to stop her from conversation. “Yggdrasil? She said several other names for the tree, but I’ve never heard anything about this. If we worshipped a tree, shouldn’t we know?”