Beyond the longest hallway, a staircase ribboned down to the Spring Palace’s lowest level where the old baths were built and later converted to storage. There, a gate led to a small courtyard and past that, another gate leading to the first of two perimeter walls surrounding the citadel. Escaping Baelok before the Daesin army destroyed it entirely required reaching the walls and the hostile terrain outside its defenses.
She picked her way past the bodies strewn around her, blinking back tears at the sight of faces stamped with terror while others wore beatific expressions as if the violence visited upon them had been a blessing instead of a defilement.
A loudthwopmade her cringe and drop to the floor just before she reached the stairs. A second and thirdthwopfollowed in quick succession, the tell-tale sound of catapults releasing. Disaris curled into a ball and prayed as the once-untouched section of the Spring Palace groaned and shuddered in agony under the barrage of falling rocks. She screamed as the adjacent stairwell folded in on itself, plunging to the floor below it with a deafening crash. Walls bowed inward, then blew out completely, succumbing to a force relentless in its purpose.
More dust and debris rained down on her head. Disaris buried her face in her mangled satchel, certain that despite her best efforts and resolve to avoid it, todaywasher day to die. She didn’t move when the chaos subsided, or when the sound of booted feet drew closer, or when the militant voices of soldiers giving commands and asking questions surrounded her.
“I think we found the itzuli. I don’t believe it. It’s a damn woman.”
“Is she alive?”
“If he can read her, she is.”
“Check.”
“Feel free, idiot. Just remember he said no one was to touch the itzuli until he got here to confirm.”
Disaris sat still as a fawn hiding in tall grass as a predator scouted nearby. She was not so lucky. There was no place to hide, there was more than one predator, and they all circled her.
Another set of footsteps approached, long on the stride, measured and surefooted. The soldier who’d called his comrade an idiot spoke again. “Is this the one you’re looking for, Commander?”
Moments passed before he received a reply and the voice that spoke made Disaris’s heart slam against her ribs. “Yes. Though I hadn’t expected a woman.”
She raised her head, half dreading, half hoping what she’d see as she stared up and up at the figure looming over her. Garbed in dusty armor and cloak, with his hair hidden by helmet and hood, Bron jin Hazarin stared down at her with a speculative gaze that lacked any hint of recognition.
But oh, she knew him. Not just with her eyes but with every part of her being. The angry scar trenching his left cheek was new to her, and the perpetual squint he’d developed since childhood had carved deeper lines into the skin at the corners of his eyes. He looked grimmer, older, yet more beautiful than when she’d last seen him.
Even surrounded by a cluster of soldiers, their swords drawn, their spears all trained on her, she barely noticed them. Instead she stared back at the man who’d captured her heart and soul more than two decades earlier, drinking in the sight of him like a person dying of thirst.
“Bron,” she said, his name a reverent orison on her lips.
His snowy eyebrows rose, and a flicker of surprise passed through his ice-blue eyes before they widened. Shock flooded his expression. In an instant, he crouched in front of her, his pale gaze traveling over her from head to feet. His gloved hand lifted, a fine tremor dancing along its length as it hovered at her cheek. “Disa?” he said, disbelief making his voice catch.
His presence, his question, just the knowledge he was within touching distance, broke the dam inside her. Tears spilled unchecked from her eyes as she pressed her face into his gloved palm. Once more, the world around her listed, and the details of her savior’s face blurred to an ivory radiance as she succumbed to oblivion. “The moon,” she whispered. “The beautiful moon.”
At six years old,Disaris jin Gheza fell in love at first sight with the pale, fragile Bron jin Hazarin. Two years older than she, thin as a broom handle and with piercing blue eyes, he’d recoiled from her initial excited greeting as if she were a large cockroach scuttling toward him.
Undeterred by the fact he hid behind his mother and flinched the closer she got, Disaris thrust out her hand and grabbed his, giving it a firm squeeze when he tried to pull away. “I’m Disa,” she said, riveted by the sight of the magnificent boy with his white hair and eyebrows. He looked like he’d swallowed the moon, and its light shone through him. She didn’t wait for him to reply. “I like your name. Do you like frogs?” She tugged on his hand, tightening her grip as he resisted and stared at her owl-eyed. “Come with me. I’ll show you a place where we can catch armloads of frogs.”
He didn’t say no but grabbed his mother’s skirt with his free hand and held on as if his very life was at stake. Disaris dug in her heels. This boy was going to spend the afternoon with her one way or the other.
His mother pried his fingers loose one by one and gave him a gentle shove that almost pitched him into Disaris’s arms. “Go on, Bron,” she said in a soothing voice. “It will be fun, and you’ll have made a friend. Just stay in the shade as much as you can.”
Bron looked more horrified than reassured, glancing back and forth between his mother and a grinning Disaris. “What if I don’t like frogs?”
He gasped and nearly tripped when Disaris yanked him forward and began dragging him down the path that led from her home to the wet weather creek at the bottom of the nearbyslope. “You will. I promise,” she declared, clenching his hand as she towed him behind her.
“Be home by sundown, Disa!” Her mother’s familiar directive followed them, and Disaris waved without pausing or turning around. She was afraid if she did, Bron would break for freedom and flee for his house.
To her surprise, he didn’t try to run away. Instead, he followed her down the worn path to a gentle descent that ended at the banks of a shallow creek. Sunlight sparkled off the burbling water, and Disaris imagined she heard the faint laughter of lim-folk within the dappling shade of oak, birch, and maple trees. Maybe they too had come out to see the beautiful moon boy.
At the creek’s edge, the trunk of a fallen oak acted as a ledge where they sat and removed their shoes. Disaris pointed her toes at the shore. “It’s muddy where the best frogs hide. It’s better to be barefoot.”
Bron’s face pinched into a disapproving expression. “Is it slimy?”
“Oh yes!” Disaris clapped her hands, eager to sink her feet into the squishy sludge and catch her first frog of the day. “Very slimy.” She eyed him, suddenly doubting just how lovely her new friend actually was. “You don’t like mud?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. This is my first time hunting for frogs.”
