Page 25 of Of Iron and Moonlight

Their fellow captives echoed similar stories in brittle voices. An ordinary morning. A strange compulsion. A momentary lapse of reason. Then bars and darkness.

Elara looked around the cage, her confusion deepening. Two women bearing the hollow look of Kryovarre’s poor. A boy no more than fourteen, pale and shaking. An old man with hair the color of wheat. Several others. Nothing to bind them together, yet all had been taken.

Brow furrowed, Elara edged closer to the bars to study the guards. All bore those violet eyes, but only her captor had dark hair; the others’ shone pale as polished silver. They rotated through their positions with practiced order, yet only he ever watched the captives.

“He leads them,” Lorrain whispered, following Elara’s gaze.

Elara nodded. She had begun to suspect as much. “Where are they taking us?”

“I don’t—”

The wagon stopped. Bodies slid forward, hands and knees striking the floorboards.

Elara snapped her attention ahead to where a massive pine lay sprawled across their path. One of the silver-haired guards stepped forward, raising his hands. The air thickened, drawn toward him. Slowly, the trunk began to lift. Then, with a second, unseen surge, the pine was flung aside. Branches splintered as it struck the ground several paces away.

Fireside tales of beautiful deceivers and perilous bargains crowded Elara’s thoughts and set them spinning. She swallowed, the word magic fixing itself in her mind as their prison rolled on.

With renewed urgency, Elara searched the cage for anything that might aid their escape—a loose nail, a weakened board, even the seed of an impossible idea—until her thoughts turned thin and frantic.

There was nothing.

Hours passed. Rain came and went. Cold crept up through the floorboards. Then night returned, and the moons rose into their orbits, each taking its turn to watch over the sky, only briefly all three visible together. Behind them, the path sealed like a closing door, placing the only life they had ever known farther and farther out of reach.

Chapter 14

Elara

Elara jolted awake so sharply the back of her skull struck the wooden floor with a thud. Awareness rushed in all at once: the sting of rope biting at her wrists, the coarse weight of a tarp thrown over her body, and the complete stillness around her.

She twisted against her bonds, fighting the tarp until she could see beyond it. The effort sent her stumbling forward, and she nearly pitched into the open emptiness of the barred wagon. Where bodies had crowded shoulder to shoulder, only hollows remained in the straw.

“Lorrain?” Her throat scraped around the name as she turned left and right, raking every corner for a trace of life. She hurled herself against the bars to search beyond the wagon.

No one.

She was alone.

The wagon stood at the edge of the woods, where the trees halted their march and open sky claimed the ground. In the far distance, Elara could see a small coastal outpost, little more than a scatter of buildings slumped against the shore. Just past the lone dock, a ship rocked in the tide where two cloaked shadows guided eleven bowed heads up a frosted gangplank, their movements slow and unresisting.

A flash of golden hair appeared, and Elara’s breath caught so abruptly she could not tell whether the ache came from hunger, the bitter cold, or the crushing fear in her gut.

She gripped the bars and shook them. “Lorrain!”

If Lorrain heard, she gave no sign.

Elara’s vision blurred as she strained against the rope at her wrists, sawing at the knots with raw forearms. “Come on,” she hissed at the binding, as if it might be shamed into yielding.

The cage creaked open. Her captor filled the doorway, sunlight catching the violet of his eyes and the damp sheen of his dark hair. Irritation flared in Elara’s chest at the stark contrast, his calm set against her own frayed edges and disarray.

“Where are you taking them?” she demanded.

His attention slipped to her wrists, and he had the audacity to look apologetic.

“Why them?” Elara rasped, jerking her bound hands toward the ship. “Why leave me?”

Silence again. Whatever orders governed him did not include explaining himself to Elara Schrewsk of Jarovina. She huffed, then narrowed her eyes, meeting his stare with a glare that promised he would not find her an easy captive.

“Why did you follow the wagon?” he asked unexpectedly.