Chapters (64)
- Front Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- Pronunciation Guide
- Prologue
- Part One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Part Two
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Part Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Part Four
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Epilogue
- Excerpt from The Sun and Its Shade
- The Night and Its Moon Playlist
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Back Cover
Nox looked out the window and stared in open-mouthed awe at the city looming before them. The trees were unfamiliar. She saw tall, bare trunks, with leaves existing only in a collection at the very top. She brought her face closer to the window to peer at the buildings and colors beyond the glass. If she had to guess the distance, she’d say they were less than a mile away from polished white buildings, tall cathedrals, and bustling life. The smell of people, animals, salt, heat, and fish soaked the air.
They were near the sea.
Nox went from scarcely stirring to instant alertness. The young woman gaped at the Madame, shaking her head skeptically.
“Priory is two week’s travel by horse,” Nox stated numbly.
Millicent curved her black-painted lips into a smile.
“She speaks.”
Nox stiffened, fully aware of her body, the carriage, the horse, the Madame. The darkness vanished, her dissociative companion spooked as she was jarred to a state of full presence. Nox felt a new confusion prick through her.
“We haven’t been traveling for two weeks.”
“Well observed, girl,” Millicent said, both bored with the conversation and seemingly disappointed that her lip-locked travel companion had loosed her words over something so mundane. Instead, she fancied herself to look out her window at her hometown, eyes sparkling with excitement.
Part Two
Ownership
Fourteen
They stopped in the town of Stone, so named for both the suffocating presence of the mountain that loomed over it and the litter of discarded granite boulders its bluffs had released into the village below. The town clung to the perimeter of a sheer, vertical cliff. It had been positioned to limit the entrances and exits to the primary road, sheltering the village from comings and goings. It took Amaris roughly four minutes of shrinking against the long-cast shadows of the mountain to decide she hated being in Stone and hoped never to return.
“How can people live here?” She cringed as she eyed the town.
“What’s wrong with it?” Odrin asked.
“The mountain! They’re stuck against the mountain! How do they not feel like they’re about to be crushed! I’ve never been anywhere that’s made me feel so…suffocated.”
He chuckled a little too heartily for the occasion.
“What?”
“Are you sure you want to become a reever?”
“Does becoming a reever mean being crushed by stones?”
His throaty laugh came again. He answered, “If you have some trouble with mountains, you may want to reconsider your choices.” Amaris wondered if Odrin was the first man she’d heard laugh. There had been the giggles of boys and smiles of orphans, but the rich, honest sound of Odrin’s amusement came from somewhere deeper in his belly than she’d encountered.
Odrin dismounted the horse and helped Amaris down.
“Keep yourself busy for a bit. Don’t go far,” he instructed.