A Court of Secrets and Moonlight

71: The Moon

Leur

505 years ago

The mission was supposed to be simple.

Get into the palace and figure out where Xian stood with Hybern. Their territory was large, their army even bigger. My father had been worried that they would land on the wrong side of the war. If they sided with Hybern, we might not stand a chance against them. Azriel and I both had been sent, the two of us listening for any and all information we could gather. I had no idea just how long we had been here, a little over a week by now. It looked as if they were leaning towards defending the human territories- their southern neighbors.

I was happy to be able to report something good back to my father. After all this time, all these years- I still found myself looking for his validation. I still found myself wanting to impress him, always searching for that one thing that might get him to see me as someone worth loving. I knew it was a losing battle, knew that whatever I did he would never love me, would never be proud of me.

And yet I still tried.

I had been ruminating on this for far too long, had let myself become far too distracted with it. Enough that I did not hear the guards coming around the corner, did not hear them in time to shift back into shadow. And I watched as they spotted me, watched and knew it was too late. They were speaking of some neighboring territory across the Great Sea that lined their eastern borders, wondering if they might be willing to cross the sea and help. I did not know of such a land, had never seen a map that stretched beyond Xian's Great Sea. And then they were staring straight at me, watching as I dissappeared into nothingness.

We need to go! I screamed through the shadows, hoping Azriel was close enough to hear me.

The palace had been nearly deserted for days, the Queen of Xian was holed up in a meeting room- talking with her advisors on how to proceed, if they even wanted to be involved, if the morality of defending the humans was worth the risk that Hybern posed.

The guards were running now, chasing after me. I was drifting as fast as I could through the evening shadows of the palace. Dusk was not too far off, only an hour or so away.

Azriel! I screeched, over and over again. I called for him, and got nothing in reply.

I had just rounded the corner to a dead end when the first bomb hit. I didn't have time to winnow, didn't have time to do anything. The sides of the palace walls blew out. If it weren't for the shadows, for the form I was in- I would have been dead.

And it seemed that we were not the only spies who had been listening, who had been watching to see which way Xian would lean. Not as troops upon troops of Hybern soldiers poured over the snow drifts surrounding the palace, firing cannons, blasts of power. At the head of them was a redheaded Hybern commander, one I recognized as the female Tamlin's father had introduced me to once- if I could just remember her name...

Where are you? Azriel's voice drifted to me on a melody, nearly a growl from how deep it was, how strained it was.

Right side of the palace, next to the royal gardens. This whole place is under siege. I answered. Should we stay and help?

There was a moment of silence from the shadows, as if he was contemplating- deciding what to do. I hid in the darkness created by the rubble as he thought, watching as the two guards that had been chasing me were shot down with arrows.

There's too many of them. We won't make much of a difference. The best thing we can do is get back and hope your father can round up the Darkbringers or the Illyrians in time. Azriel answered, Can you get to the western entrance?