When the Moon Hatched

The King of The Burn, Ostern Vaegor, visits Elluin, who is now 18 years old. He approaches her parents about an arranged marriage between Elluin and one of his sons, Tyroth Vaegor, “who has cruel eyes and an even crueler smile” (215). Her father assures her that he will not accept the proposal. Haedeon has been a husk of himself since returning from Netheryn. He no longer laughs or speaks. Elluin pushes him to strengthen his Moonplume’s wing so that he may fly on her someday. She believes this might be enough to make him smile again.

The undercover King whom Raeve still hasn’t identified returns to unlock the door of her cell. He escorts her to a quiet room at the end of a tunnel housing a lone fleshthread. Though Raeve is apprehensive about allowing the healer, Bhea, close to the whipping wounds on her back, she relents when she realizes that if she runs, the King will certainly give chase.

Bhea gasps when Raeve lifts her shirt. Bhea has the ability of Dragonsight, which means that she can see the past runes on Raeve’s back without using dragonfire to ignite them. Rather than reveal this to the King, Bhea sees Raeve’s pleading eyes and keeps the knowledge to herself. Raeve is disconcerted when the King comfortingly holds her hand and wipes the sweat from her brow as the healing procedure takes place.

Elluin continues to work on Allume’s wings, and one day, the dragon is able to fly. When Elluin checks on Haedeon after, he is smiling. He speaks for the first time in years to give Elluin his thanks, and she is filled with happiness.

After her back is healed, Raeve is returned to her cell. A miskunn—a knee-height, verbal creature with snow-white fur and a willowy, marsupial body capable of seeing vague glimpses of the future—visits Raeve in her cell. The miskunn is Uno, a pet belonging to Ruse, Raeve’s friend from The Curly Quill. Uno claims that Sereme (Ruse’s employer and Raeve’s handler in the Fíur du Ath resistance group) spoke to Ruse and commanded Uno free Raeve. Raeve pleads for Uno to abort the mission despite her orders. Uno pauses to glimpse into the future and sees that both Ruse and Sereme will die if Raeve does not go into the coliseum. With this knowledge, Uno decides to abandon the mission and inform Rune and Sereme about the vision. Before she leaves, she draws the Hae’s Perch moon on Raeve’s forehead in coal to give her comfort.

Raeve is escorted to the coliseum the next morning. She is doused in animal blood to attract the Moltenmaws prowling the sky. The Queen arrives to witness and is shocked upon seeing Raeve. The Queen begins screaming at her soldiers and sings to Clode, whose air magic pushes the circling dragons further from Raeve. A Sabersythe appears in the coliseum, which is a rare occurrence. Raeve assumes that it intends to feed her to its young in the blazing hot hatching grounds of Gondragh. As the Sabersythe faces her, a strange song that Raeve does not recognize is pulled from her throat. The Sabersythe regards her as if it understands her and scoops her inside its mouth.

The previous night, Elluin slept curled within the tail of her dragon, Slátra, dreaming happily of Haedeon’s smile and his first ride on Allume. When she wakes, she finds her family dead—both her parents and Haedeon have been poisoned and strangled to death. Her mother’s death loosened the Aether Stone diadem from her head, and Elluin can suddenly hear the screeching songs of the Creators. The royal aides pressure Elluin to wear the diadem now and continue the family duty.

Raeve remains safe inside the dragon’s mouth as it flies away, presumably to Gondragh, where she believes she will be fed to its young. When the dragon lands and spits her out, she’s greeted by the undercover King. The King refers to the dragon by the name Rygun, thus revealing himself as King Kaan Vaegor of The Burn. Kaan instructs her to mount his dragon. He plans for them to travel to The Burn’s capital, Dhomm. Raeve expects to feel fear when the dragon takes to the skies but is instead greeted with a feeling of giddy amazement.

Elluin begins wearing the Aether Stone, and the Creators’ voices become muffled. Wearing the diadem makes her feel as though her soul is being sucked out. While her parents’ bodies were burned by the flames of their dragons, Allume scooped Haedeon up and brought him to the sky, where they became a single moon together. Elluin’s parents’ aides tell her that she must bind herself to someone who can wield more than two elemental songs to be accepted by the folk of Arithia as a worthy ruler. The Tri-Council of the neutral city of Bothaim will convene to decide her fate.

Raeve believes that Kaan is taking her to Dhomm for nefarious, self-serving reasons, and she plans to run at the first opportunity. After landing on firm ground, Kaan brings Raeve to water containing healing properties and hands her soap to bathe with. When he pulls off his tunic, Raeve admires his body. Ink and scars cover his upper body. The ink depicts an expanse of white stars and moons, including the wonky one that Raeve loves so much. One moon inked on his back is no longer in the sky, however, as it’s since fallen. A black and silver carving hangs from a leather strap around his neck, depicting a Sabersythe and Moonplume embracing. She also notices old burn scars around his thighs.

While following Kaan up a red-stone stairway path, she discovers a Sabersythe scale and deftly tucks it in between her tied wrists. Kaan pries a tick from Rygun and kills it while informing Raeve that if left unattended, “they release a toxin that can turn a dragon rabid” (288). Kaan leads Raeve to a cozy home that was once his mother’s retreat. His use of the past tense when he refers to his mother indicates to Raeve that his mother is deceased. Raeve gives Kaan her name at last, and he begins cooking dinner. When he uses his weald to light the stove, Raeve’s reaction reveals that she dislikes fire.

Kaan removes the iron cuffs from around Raeve’s ankles and one wrist, leaving one cuff on to nullify her power should she wish to use it against him. When he tucks the tools he used back into his satchel, she glimpses something silver and shimmery inside. She suspects that it’s a moonshard—a shard of the Moonplume that fell from the sky more than 20 years ago. She wonders what reason he’d have for collecting fallen moonshards.

Raeve struggles to eat the soup Kaan prepares with her hands bound so tightly. When she begins to slurp it, Kaan bursts into laughter, and Raeve soon follows, spitting soup everywhere. When their laughter ebbs, there is a tender moment that scares Raeve. She doubles down on her hostility toward him. Though he helps feed her and wipes the spilled soup from her face and clothes before leading her up the stairs, they do not share another emotionally tender moment. He shows her to her room, which smells like him, and invites her to attempt to escape in the night if she believes she can slip past him.

In privacy, Raeve saws at the rope binding her hands with the Sabersythe scale’s sharp edge. Raeve doesn’t want to kill Kaan but decides to do so rather than risk him catching her once she escapes. However, when she straddles him and lifts the sharp scale to his throat, waking him, she is flooded with strange feelings. She loses her motivation to kill him and instead feels an intense attraction to him. Things become heated between them, and they almost have sex, but when Raeve calls it meaningless, Kaan pulls away and sends her back to her room for the night.