Chapter Four: The Eve of the Blood Moon

In the days that followed, Lia was held under house arrest in the west chamber of the side palace—and yet, unexpectedly, she fared better than she had in the previous eight years.

No one struck her, no one cursed at her. Though the guards never left her side, they brought her three meals each day on time, and even, when night fell, someone would set a bowl of warm sweet porridge quietly outside her door—by the prince's own order, so it was said.

Lia could not tell what Kaelric was thinking.

All she knew was that every other day or so, he would come. He did not speak; he would stand at the window with his back to her, watching the light outside. Once, she took her courage in both hands and asked, "Your Highness... why have you not burned me?"

Kaelric did not turn. He was silent a long while before he said, "Because I have kept turning a question over in my mind. My father burned your mother. If one day he were to find that something that ought not to be ran in my blood as well—would he burn me too?"

Lia froze.

She longed to press him further, but Kaelric was already gone. The words were like a needle sunk in her heart, and try as she might, she could not pull them out.

The day of the Blood Moon drew near. The sky over the capital grew grayer with each passing day, the clouds pressing low as though the heavens meant to cave in. Lia had a vague sense that something momentous was about to happen. She remembered the assassin's words—on the night of the Blood Moon, come to the Temple of the Sunken Moon.

She began to note the hours when the guards changed watch, the path from the side palace to the back courtyard, every corner where one might scale the wall. She did not mean to run away. She only wanted to understand what her mother had left her, and what secret the "Temple of the Sunken Moon" the black-clad man had spoken of truly hid.

At dusk, on the eve of the Blood Moon, Kaelric came.

This time he did not stand at the window. He came straight before her and crouched down, bringing himself level with her eyes. Firelight laid a patchwork of light and shadow across his face, and those deep amber eyes looked deeper than ever in the dim twilight.

"Tomorrow night, the Blood Moon will rise," he said. "The palace will hold the Grand Sacrifice. My father and the Wains will both attend. Isolde, from the North, will come as well."

He paused.

"I keep thinking the date was chosen wrong. The Dusk Order will not let this chance slip. You..." He looked at her and said, abruptly, "Would you... also want to go to the Temple of the Sunken Moon?"

Lia's breath caught.

She bowed her head at once and clutched the hem of her dress. "This servant dare not. This servant understands nothing."

Kaelric looked at her for a long time—so long that Lia almost thought he would say something. But he only rose to his feet, drew from his breast a small, red-gold seal, and pressed it into her hand.

"Keep it," he said. "This is the Flame Seal. It will shield you once, when it matters most. Remember—no matter what happens tomorrow, live."

He was gone the moment he finished speaking. The door closed behind him, and Lia looked down at the red-gold seal, faintly warm in her palm, her heart hammering so hard it seemed it would leap out of her throat.

The Flame Seal. It was the token of the Ashfall royal line. A single Flame Seal could summon the protection of the Flame Guard, and carried the same weight as the prince's own presence.

She clutched the seal tight in her hand and looked up at the window. A crack had split the clouds along the horizon, and a corner of the moon peered through it—and that moon was washed in a strange, almost bloody red.

The Blood Moon was coming.