Moonborn (Mirai's Tears I), MxM. SAMPLE

1. Brotherhood (2)

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"Oi! Sinaru!"

He ripped his gaze from the mother and child in front of him and whirled around, snapping his attention to yet another assailant. The fires seething all around blazed in the man's eyes as he swung his lance, allowing Sinaru no room to evade.

Those two had pulled him into his memories for too long.

The pike grazed his chest and his pendant lept out from its confinement under the bandages and the black cloak hiding them. Even while falling backwards, Sinaru reached out to his treasure, distantly aware that the attacker was preparing another strike. When he closed his fist around the familiar crystal and plummeted to the ground with a grunt, the pike already jabbed toward his chest again.

His heart drummed against his ribcage. This was it.

Only: time seemed to slow down. As Sinaru reflexively pushed his free hand forward in a pointless parry, a sensation of pure cold rushed through him, aided by a dark shadow that thumped against the lancer and threw him to the ground.

Sinaru stared up into the dark sky, panting, and finally heard Havfast stomping to reach him and the assailant to finish the man off with his spear.

In the background, some last skirmishes ended with similar sounds of finishing thrusts and last gasps. Mother Moon sent her violet gleam over the night sky and flickered as Sinaru blinked in exhaustion. Another town silenced. That should mean the Peacebringers were fulfilling their task.

Sinaru wasn't so sure of that.

"You alright, brother?" Havfast pulled him up on his feet again, brushing off his coat, then held him at the shoulders. "That was a close one. You sure you're not overdoing it with your... stuff?"

Positive that Havfast was referring to the dried plants in his belt pouch, he still searched his comrade's amber eyes for any sign that he had seen the shadow leaping up from Sinaru's body. Surely the man would lose his head completely should he ever be witness to a magic like that. A magic that Sinaru himself hadn't seen nor used in decades. One he'd sworn to never allow creeping into his life again. It was forbidden for good reason.

Havfast cocked his head, the braids bundled in his neck bopping in the motion. "Are you alright?"

"I might be, once you stop crushing my bones."

Sinaru brushed off Havfast's hands to look down at the family to their feet, the infant. Again he had hesitated. Again Havfast had been forced to intervene. Ten years and all kinds of substances to numb his thoughts had done nothing to help him breach that last taboo—nor change any of the rules dictated by the Highpriest.

Havfast stepped to his side. "You'll never be able to deliver children, huh?"

Deliver.

Sinaru's nostrils flared. "There's no need when you are so good at it."

It wasn't a compliment. Still Havfast bellowed a laugh and pulled Sinaru to his side with his massive—and bloodied, he noted—arm, shaking him in an awkward hug. Sinaru suppressed a flinch by biting the inside of his cheeks. The already sore skin broke and he tasted blood.

"Don't worry, brother, I won't tell him."

Sinaru frowned up to Havfast, whose face sported a rare expression: worry.

"He's here," he said, pointing his chin toward the village's center.

There, the other Peacebringers had bunched together around the village well and were inclining their heads in reverence as the enchanted carriage rattled towards them. As usual, Sinaru could make out the hint of a silhouette in front of the obsidian wagon, disembodied mists trailing along the carriage shaft where horses, now long extinct, used to be strapped in a harness. He doubted any without Mirwen eyes could see the spirits that made the enchantment possible—providing the Highpriest didn't simply bind them to his will. True enchantments were an art Sinaru had thought long forgotten outside Mirwen society before the Highpriest had taken him in.