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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’s lungs burned. Her legs ached. Sweat and heat and dust coated her face, her hands, her throat. She knew she couldn’t quit, but while she had been told to buy time, she had no idea how to expend or preserve her stamina. Gadriel was badly wounded. The audience continued to scream their thrill at witnessing a slaughter. The ag’drurath was agitated, but the beast would ultimately outlast them both.

A buzzing cold swept through her as her faith leeched from her pores.

Helplessness coursed through her as she eyed the unkillable demon.

Each second required only one more move. Any hope for survival was contingent on focusing on the next right move.

Amaris looked for her next best action to draw the monster’s attention when, from the door through which the guards who had dragged her had left, out stumbled a disoriented, gold-breasted Captain of the Guard.

The sight was so jarring that Amaris almost lost her wherewithal.

While Gadriel kept the beast panicked in its need to shake him from its neck, the gold-breasted captain rushed for the creature’s leg. He lofted his ornate sword with the intent to attack. Confusion flashed to comprehension immediately.

The guard was their gilded sacrifice.

Amaris snapped to attention. She couldn’t let the ag’drurath see the captain. Not yet.

She slashed again at the belly over and over again until the beast twisted its serpentine neck for her in agitation, keeping its eyes from the soldier.

“Nox.” Amaris whispered the name like a prayer on her lips, knowing what Nox had done. The name glowed through her as she slashed, repeating the blow as many times as she could until she knew she was within striking distance.

The captain closed the gap and began hacking at the great trunk of the dragon’s back right leg, just above where the chain had cuffed it to the dungeon for goddess knew how many years. The dragon shrieked unnaturally, flinging the winged fae successfully from its neck with a thwack as he careened into the coliseum wall. Gadriel slumped on impact. The Captain of the Guard, gilded breastplate reflecting the sunlight, continued his barbaric attempts at amputation, feeling and seeing nothing around him, as he was possessed with the single-minded need to cut and slice exactly here, exactly this place, exactly now.

The dragon coiled, then struck.

The ag’drurath dove with its mighty, unholy maw and had the captain in his jaws in a second. The man’s face and shoulders had been swallowed, disappearing into the void of its throat. The black creature raised its neck skyward, allowing gravity to aid it as its needle teeth crunched down on the captain’s breastplate. The sounds of metal and bone against teeth echoed above the cries from the people as they screamed in shock, their world turned upside down by his appearance.