Prologue
Green grass turns to ash. Trees that shadowed over us for centuries through storms and hail are now reduced to burning pyres of a village lost to the brutality of that odious breed.
Lycans.
Horrible, violent, ravenous predators.
Raging, ripping, hacking, and burning everything they see, everything they want. There is no grace to them, no reason, and no purpose as to why such vile creatures should be allowed to live at all. And yet they persist and grow more powerful because they’re crafty. Unlike us, they have learned ways of the modern world and assimilated and now they work with humans, befriend them, marry them, toy with them, and tear them apart when it fancies them in more ways than one.
Meanwhile, no one knows that lunars exist. No one needs to know because we do not exist to be known. We exist because the moon does and the earth does and the sun gives life and as long as there is this, there is us.
But tonight, a pack of those heinous beasts and their foul minions have destroyed my village.
Monwa is burning, and I have to run away.
May the moon guide me to safety.
Every step I take, the forest puts a little distance between me and this fiery bloodlust until it blurs into small shimmering lights and the night is dark again.
I keep running deeper into the woods for this isn’t the time to stop, not yet. Arcas is on my back. He’s not trying to get off, not complaining how his tiny arms are aching from holding on to me for so long, not even crying anymore as if all his words have died…like his mother.
There’s a clearing up ahead with the moon shining down on it with all her glory. I pause and take refuge behind a thick tree, calculating how much farther is the edge of this forest and where exactly are we? This isn’t a part I’ve ever ventured into before, not being a hunter or a warrior. I wasn’t allowed to ever stray this farther from the village but now, things are different.
I have to run. I have to get to a safe place.
I shift Arcas from my back to my arms so I can carry him in a more comfortable position for the next, goodness knows how many miles, when he looks at me. His eyes are quiet, so still like the surface of a lake but his lip quivers.
“Mira…” he whispers, “…my wand didn’t work.”
That wounds me, like a knife twisting in my heart. I bury him in my chest and sob, feeling his tiny head under my chin, his arms digging into my sides as he tries to hug me back.
“Don’t cry Mira,” he says. “You fought well. You saved me.”
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