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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

They dismounted and Odrin waved her away, instructing her to ask around to see if anyone in town was headed to the coast. He didn’t need her there while he chatted with the village’s bishop. Odrin disappeared inside one of the only homes with clay shingles in an otherwise thatch-roofed village. Amaris idled nervously about the horse for a minute. She was nearly fifteen, but her whole life had consisted of the grounds of Farleigh. The world felt too big. Every face was new and strange. Every building was crushingly unfamiliar. Given that two strangers—one a towering man and the other a girl bloodied beyond recognition—had entered the quiet town, they were drawing some stares. It didn’t help her ever-growing sense of crushing discomfort.

Amaris fidgeted before heading nervously toward the inn.

She stopped short of the door, unsure whether she was supposed to knock. Visitors and sellers at the doors of Farleigh always knocked. Buyers entered freely on market day. After a long moment, she decided that she was more of a buyer than a seller, and she eased the door open with extreme trepidation.

The woman within—whether a barmaid or the innkeeper herself—nearly dropped her pitcher of ale when Amaris entered.

Amaris stopped on the landing, unsure from the woman’s reaction if she’d done something terribly wrong. Warmth and the sour smells of beer, sourdough, and smoke hit her, overwhelming her senses and gluing her to the doorway. She shrank, not knowing if she should retreat. Perhaps she should have knocked. This was one of the first decisions she’d ever had to make for herself, and clearly, she’d done it wrong.

“Oh my, dear” came the woman’s gasp.

She approached Amaris with a friendly face creased with worry and extended two maternal hands as she examined the young girl’s injuries.

“It’s not that bad,” Amaris said, lifting a hand self-consciously to the wound on her face. She nearly pressed her back into the door, flinching away from the woman’s advances.

The middle-aged woman put her hands on her hip, one still clutching the dirty rag that she’d been using to wipe the tables around her.

“Do you have coin?”

“How much do you need?”

The woman shook her head, tugging Amaris forward. “I won’t charge a wretched thing like you more than two pennies. Come now.”

“I think my traveling partner might—”