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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

His wings unfurled, and she rolled from him into the trunk of a nearby tree. The base of the tree stopped her by knocking the wind from her lungs, crunching her torso against its unmoving form. Her eyes swam as she twisted her body to see Gadriel. His crumpled body had collided into a lichen-covered boulder. He was not moving. She wheezed, unable to find air. She clawed at her chest, but air would not come. Stars spotted her vision, joining the gray clouds and swing of the overhanging canopy. She forced herself to relax, remembering several times during her first year at the reev that she had been kicked or thrown in the sparring ring and undergone the same frantic thrash for air; each time Ash would bend over her and calm her, telling her to breathe.

The air was there. It would come.

She could almost hear his voice as it echoed its command through her memory with such familiarity. “Breathe, Ayla.”

Amaris closed her eyes. She calmed herself, and though it took several minutes, she worked through the initial panic and willed herself to breathe normally once more. She remained lying on her back, staring up at the space between the tops of trees, watching the gray clouds roll by as she focused on her breath. She heard the distant screech as a demon devoured nearby sheep. The calming techniques had worked. The high-pitched ringing had faded well enough for her to hear. She could breathe. She could see the trees for what they were. Amaris rolled her head to the side to look for Gadriel. The general still had not moved.

Amaris found the strength in herself to crawl to him, shaking his limp body with her scraped, bloodied hands. She lowered her cheek to his mouth and felt the barely present heat of his breath. He was alive.

“Come on, demon. Don’t you die on me.”

Amaris didn’t know what to do. She had been trained as a field medic at the reev for wounds, but he did not appear to be bleeding. His spine could be broken. His wings had already been irreparably cut to ribbons. He could be bleeding internally for all she knew. Amaris couldn’t let herself believe any of it. She wouldn’t allow herself to be consumed with such hopelessness. They’d escaped a goddess-damned ag’drurath; they weren’t going to die now alone in the woods with only pine needles and moss to keep them company.

“No,” she argued against the empty quiet. “You aren’t allowed.” Amaris curled herself around him, resting her back against the rock. “You don’t have permission. You can’t die now. You fucking can’t. Wake up, Gadriel. Wake up.”

He did not.