LOGINAviva
The meeting hall is crowded from wall to wall. I hug one of the walls, my back pressed flat against it as I try to blend in with the dark stone. Everyone is merry as they walk between tables laden with food and drink. Everyone in attendance has worn their finest fabrics and beads. Many of the single, of age, young women have truly gone all out, in fact.
I cross my arms under my less-than-ample breasts and tap my nails against the long gold chains loopin
ZaynThe arena in Moonrise is full of young men and women–the best of the best, hand-picked by Queen Maeve and her father, Commander Evander of the Ghost forces. The Ghosts mill about in their form-fitting, far more comfortable and sleek uniforms while knights like myself move more clunkily, trying to find pockets of shade while commanders go over their lists and generals, me included, keep our assigned men in check. “General Zayn!” I turn to the shout of Commander Wilcox, who waves me over to where he’s standing with Commander Heatherway. A group of warriors in their wolf forms glide past me at a trot. One of them nearly runs into me, but they skirt out of my way at the last possible second. It’s madness here. Barely organized. Hot as fucking hell. I reach the commanders. Wilcox jumps in immediately, saying, “The queen is sending three hundred warriors north through Veiled Valley this morning and another two hundred tomorrow morning to set up our camps and stations before we send
FallonNaomi cups her knees while I pace to and from the window in our favorite sitting room, in my suite, which adjoins hers. The shared door is open, and beyond, a flurry of maids quickly unpack her suitcases and trunks. “Tell me again. In detail.”“There’s not much else to say. Mom got a summons from Uncle Sydney. We had to travel to Crescent Falls last night, and now we’re back, and Mom’s turning around again to go to Maatua with a highly specialized selection of our royal forces.”“Because KiloKilo is threatening to attack?” I spit, furious. “I told everyone this would happen.”“In her defense, you did say you’d go to KiloKilo and marry some rando you’ve never met.”“This would have happened, regardless.” I smooth my hands over the bodice of my cream-colored gown with butter yellow trim–one of my all-time favorites. “I told them. I was right. I knew KiloKilo was up to something. I could have been there by now, ensuring peace between our Kingdoms. This never needed to happen. I w
ZaynI hate to admit that Fallon won this time. It took approximately two minutes of threats while waving around my employee file for me to find myself on the edge of my unmade bed with Fallon standing between my knees, her dainty hand gripping my shoulder to keep me still. She danced around the fact that she knows I’m not originally from the Roguelands. She made it clear that she’s under the impression I want my background, whatever it is, kept secret, which is why my file is so thin, and several important chunks on most forms have been left blank on purpose. Her parents didn’t seem to care, but Fallon does. She made a single promise to never ask about my past as long as I’d allow her to fix me up. So I agreed, even if her touch feels like a cool kind of fire–something foreign–something that threatens to undo everything I’ve promised myself I wouldn’t ever consider having for myself. “Stop moving. I can see your skull,” she snaps, dabbing the wound with pure rubbing alcohol. I ca
FallonGrandma Kenna walks around Alyssa’s bed in the clinic at the base of the palace. Beyond a glimmering window on the far side of the room, Moonrise is cast in pearly shades of gold and blue, last night’s storm a distant memory. I haven’t slept, to say the least. Peeved and generally overstimulated, I paced my room until I ran tracks in the carpet and then burst into the hallway the second the sun rose to meet the team of warriors and healers I sent to the temple, and I’ve been here, in the clinic, ever since. It’s not even 9:00 in the morning yet, but I haven’t seen Zayn since last night, when he walked me briskly to my rooms and ordered the knight tasked with standing guard over me all night to not let me out of my rooms until he returned the next morning, which he… hasn’t done yet. Grandma fans her fingers down Alyssa’s chest with a sigh. “I don’t understand what I’m feeling. She’s fine. Perfectly healthy. But something is amiss. I can sense that, I just can’t find it.”“She
FallonZayn stills as the young priestess rushes down the steps, her fingers gripping a slightly damp apron that carries the scent of camphor and chamomile–healing herbs I’m familiar with from my education in matters of witchcraft and the like. She looks incredibly frazzled as she reaches his side, out of breath. She tugs his arm in an effort to hurry him back up the steps, leaving me behind. I stare after them. Somewhere in the distance, over the mountain peaks, thunder rumbles, promising another epic mid-summer storm. My skin prickles. Electricity spices the air, and I’m not sure if it's the weather driving the currents or something else–something slippery, slimy, and uneasy now curling in the pit of my belly. I climb out of the truck through his open door. The hem of my gown snags on the clutch and rips, but the sound is swallowed by another burst of thunder, closer than the last. I’m halfway out of the truck and fumbling with my gown when Zayn disappears through a doorway with t
ZaynBlake, Queen Maeve’s emissary and King of the Mystics, although he hates that title but hasn’t vocally admitted it yet, at least not to me, motions at me to follow him into a wide, spacious kitchen in his modern home on the outskirts of the city. I just arrived with precious cargo who could otherwise spirit from one side of our world to the other by simply snapping her fingers had she not gone against her parents’ commands, but I digress. She was, at least, quiet in the car, enraptured by a podcast about the sordid history of the ancient city of Rifthold, now a barren wasteland near the border of Tarsian and the Roguelands. I’ll remember that the next time she grows bored and starts using me as a paper airplane target again, which will likely be sometime tomorrow. “General,” Blake says in greeting, reaching into a smooth, pale wooden cabinet above a sink made entirely of copper. I know he designed this house from the bottom up. He talked about it often with Alex, the vampire w
LoganI stare down at the words covering a single piece of pure-white paper. It’s my evening ritual these days, especially when I’m closeted away in this room, in these barracks, instead of in a tent or curled up in a ball in my wolf form somewhere in the rural Roguelands or desert of Tarsian. I gl
BrieI can’t get out of this gown fast enough. I lean against the door of my bedroom to close it, praying the butter-white walls give me some sense of peace, but my heart is absolutely racing. I rip at my bodice, cursing under my breath as the satin fabric snags and squeals instead of just–of jus
Brie“He’s brash and… bossy.” I pace to the other side of my suite as warm morning air drifts through the windows, washing the room in tropical light. Maeve chuckles through the phone. I imagine her sprawled out in her bed, hanging her head over the mattress while flipping through a magazine on th
BrieMonica arches her brow as she plucks another petal off the flower she’s been defacing for the last ten minutes in relative silence. She’s precariously perched on the railing of the upper deck, with an insane drop to sudden death beneath her, yet she doesn&rsq







