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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 took off with foxlike agility. She hugged the stadium’s edge as she moved. The dragon’s serpentine eyes followed her as she sprinted, and she sensed the beast coiling up to strike. The moment she felt the tension snap and the needle-toothed maw propel toward her, she used a move she’d perfected at the reev: she dove toward the enemy, tucking the drive into a roll and continuing her sprint toward its legs while the face of the beast careened into the wall of the coliseum. Its face hit the wall with the loud crack of thunder. The ag’drurath winced from the great force of its impact, unleashing another scream meant to melt the bones and minds of its prey with terror. There was one thing Amaris knew about being small when facing a large enemy: weight and size were as much a disadvantage as they were an asset.

Amaris saw the recognition behind his eyes as Gadriel took no time at all to understand the task at hand. Whether they wore it down, knocked it out, or simply lived to battle the beast until they could stand no longer, they would fight with every clawing breath to buy themselves precious time. The ag’drurath was still shaking off the pain of its impact with the wall as Amaris caught the general’s assessing glances of the creature.

While she was darting for the space near its legs, she could feel Gadriel’s eyes on her. She trusted that he saw how the beast tracked her movements. The ag’drurath readjusted its snakelike head, bobbing to the music of an unheard song while it eyed her hungrily. The screaming sounds of the crowd were the music of war, composing a terrible symphony for their battle. Gadriel looked to the snake again, then to Amaris.

Its attention was fixed on her.

The dragon could snatch her in its needlelike teeth in a second. It focused solely on Amaris, its forked tongue darting past the horrible rows of jagged teeth as it tasted the air for her scent. She needed Gadriel’s help, even if she had no idea what he could possibly do to keep them from a gory, horrid death.

With his slashed wings, the general could not fly, nor could he roll as Amaris had done due to the girth of his wingspan. She counted on him to do the only thing he could: distract. Gadriel rushed in the opposite direction, flaring his broken, bloodied wings to draw the attention of the monster as it poised to strike Amaris. She caught the pained look on his face as he bypassed her, spreading his shredded wings to draw the dragon’s eyes.