Chapter Nine: The Temple of the Sunken Moon

At dusk on the second day, they reached the Temple of the Sunken Moon.

It was a vast structure half-sunk into the earth, built of white stone, untouched by a hundred years of wind and rain, and wrapped instead in a layer of dark, flowing light. The doors stood wide. Carved above the lintel was a line of ancient flowing script, which Lia, to her own astonishment, could read—it was the old tongue of the shadow folk:

"Only those who bear the blood of shadow may enter."

Kaelric reached out and touched the door; flame kindled in his palm, only to be thrown back by an unseen force. He frowned. "There is a seal. I cannot enter."

Lia hesitated, then reached out and touched the flowing film of dark light with her fingertips. It trembled faintly beneath her touch, and then, soundlessly, it opened into a doorway.

"It seems," Kaelric said, looking at her with a complicated gaze, "this place was kept for you."

The two of them stepped into the temple side by side. It was dim within, and on the stone walls on either side burned lamps of a ghostly blue—the Eternal Lamps of the shadow folk, unextinguished for a hundred years. Lia walked step by step along that row of lamps, her shadow stretching long at her feet, as though leading the way.

At the far end of the hall she saw an altar. On it lay a yellowed book and a letter tied with a dark ribbon. On the envelope was her mother's familiar, upright handwriting:

"To my daughter Lia, to be opened by her hand alone."

Lia's hands shook so that she could scarcely open the letter.

She unfolded the letter and read it, word by word, by the blue lamplight. It was short, yet it turned the blood in her body cold, drop by drop, and then set it burning, drop by drop.

"Lia—

If you are reading this letter, then the day has come at last. Your father was no ordinary man. Two bloodlines flow in your veins—one half the direct line of the Shadow Queen, the other half descended from the first king of the Ashfall dynasty.

A hundred years ago the Shadow Queen fell, and her shadow sank into the earth and became a curse. But your father and I were only pieces on the board. The one who truly moves the pieces sits upon the court of the Ashfall dynasty.

Isolde of House Wain is the direct heir of the Shadow Queen. She has lain hidden for a hundred years, that on the Third Turning of the Blood Moon she might reopen the Sunken Moon, seize Melaira's power once more, and wash the Ashfall dynasty in blood. And Ashfall the Third, to keep his throne, struck a bargain with the Wains a hundred years ago—they burned every pure-blood shadow, leaving only two pieces to hold one another in check: you, and Kaelric.

You are their pieces. And you are... the key to unravelling all of this.

Go down to the crypt beneath the altar. There sleeps the last answer the Shadow Queen left to this world."

The letter ended there. At its foot, in the lightest of hand, her mother had added one more line:

"Lia, whether you hate fire or hate shadow—remember this: you were never a piece on anyone's board. You belong to yourself alone."

Lia held the letter and wept.

Kaelric stood behind her; he too had read the letter. He was silent a long time before he said, his voice rough, "So my mother... in my father's bargain with the Wains, she too was the piece... that was sacrificed."

Lia turned and looked at him. In those dark eyes the tears were not yet dry, yet they shone with an alarming light.

"We are not pieces," she said. "Kaelric, let us go down to the crypt. What we seek is not only an answer. What we seek is freedom."

She took his hand. The Flame Seal on his palm and the shadow pendant on hers both kindled at once, twining into one thread of light, gold-red and dark-blue intertwined.

The two of them turned and walked toward the long, dark staircase down into the crypt beneath the altar.

They did not see that, behind them, outside the temple doors, a figure in a dark green robe stood watching the direction in which they had vanished, a cold smile slowly curving her lips.

"Found them," Isolde murmured. "My good little brother, and... the blood of Melaira's bastard. On the Third Turning of the Blood Moon—none of you will escape."