Chapter One

Xishlon Renaissance

Andras Volya

Voloi, Noilaan

Xishlon night, close to a year later

Andras glances out over the violet-washed Vo River then up past Noilaan’s translucent dome. His gaze narrows in on the purple Xishlon moon hanging above it all like a lantern, his entire chest tight with painful longing.

He hugs his three-year-old son, Konnor, close, knowing he should have nothing but joy in his heart. Because they’ve survived. His son is safe in his arms, and Andras’s mother, Astrid, stands beside them on the rebuilt dock of Voloi, all of them watching the purple fireworks sent up by Dryad’khin sorceresses and geomancers, the bursts of light shimmering in the sky over the Vo.

Yes, he’s grateful for so many things. For the survival of the East. For the fragile hope for his son’s future, and for the future of all Erthia’s children.

Now that almost the entire population has united as Dryad’khin.

And Andras has rewarding work here as one of the East’s most knowledgeable animal healers, working not only with Ariel Haven to heal animals, but also with his entire Lupine pack to aid in the reintroduction of species into land that’s slowly being reclaimed from the Shadow, a whole herd of wild purple Noi horses amongst his kindreds.

“Papa, look,”

Konnor breathes as he points toward the sky.

Andras’s aching heart lifts a fraction as he takes in the dazzled wonder in his son’s crimson Lupine eyes. His child’s spiky blue-and-purple-streaked black hair picks up flashes of the fireworks’ light as they form incandescent designs reflected in the Vo River . . . great, shimmering irises; deep violet roses that gorgeously sizzle to sparks; a constellation of stars; then a giant purple dragon—Vo’s purple manifestation of love.

Tears sheen Andras’s eyes, the tight longing in his chest intensifying even as he smiles warmly at his son. He’s grateful, truly he is, to see his small family and other Dryad’khin taking a moment to celebrate love in this magical moment, after so much devastating loss followed by strenuous work to regain some of Nature’s Balance. But the pull of the East’s lavender moon and the torment of its thrall grow ever more acute as the moon’s purple light deepens.

Because he’s still in love with her.

Sorcha.

Andras’s heart twists. His undimmed longing for Sorcha . . . it’s worse, so much worse, under this moon.

“You were right, my son,”

his mother says, drawing his attention.

He turns and meets his mother’s dark gaze, her face, decorated with its Amaz runic tattoos. She’s turned toward him with a look of both deep love and remorse. “You were right to push me toward being open to new ways,”

Astrid admits. “This festival . . . it’s a good one.”

His eyes widen a fraction over the Xishlon moon’s ability to loosen his rigidly reserved mother’s tongue and help her speak from her heart . . . and offer what he knows is a difficult apology.

“The Amaz have many admirable ways, as well,”

he suggests.

“They do,”

Astrid agrees, her voice tight with emotion, the black metallic beads decorating her braided black-and-purple hair glinting in the Xishlon light. “But Queen Alkaia knew . . . she knew that the path forward is diverse. And that it was time to change more than a few traditions.”

Andras considers this. “Will you join Queen Freyja’s Amaz faction now?”

Queen Freyja Zyrr has set up a new Amaz homeland, with close to three-quarters of the Amaz, in the Northern Vo Forest, establishing a new, more liberal approach toward having men in their midst, including the queen’s love, Clive Soren. The remaining Amaz faction has split off under a new queen and is readying to journey to the continent’s harsh northern reaches.

Away from all men.

“Freyja’s faction will allow you to embrace both me and your grandson without being cast out,”

Andras offers, clear how painful this separation from her people has always been for his mother—a separation caused by her wildly rebellious decision to let her son live.

And to love him.

Astrid peers back up at the moon, a slight, melancholy smile on her lips as a huge firework detonates into the shape of a purple Xishlon rose. “I love my people, it’s true,”

she says, “and I always will. But I’ve decided to join the Lupines.”

Andras pulls in a harsh breath while Konnor lets out a delighted gasp at the display, fireworks now exploding into the shapes of two herons flying joyfully around the moon. But Andras is only half-aware of the Xishlon display. Because . . . his mother joining the Lupines isn’t just a breaking of boundaries. It’s a flat-out rebellion. A rebellion of the best kind.

In defense of love.

Andras’s thoughts careen back to Sorcha, his beautiful Amaz love, and his breathing grows uneven and tight.

When he and his Dryad’khin allies returned to the Eastern Realm last fall and Andras first caught sight of Sorcha in the front lines of a combined Amaz, Smaragdalfar, Lupine, and Keltish force, his heart had leaped in his chest, hope rising that there was some chance Sorcha’s rigid adherence to Amaz ways had softened.

Days later, as she retreated into a closed-off area north of Voloi claimed by the traditional faction of Amaz resistant to working with men or joining with the Forest, he tried to seek her out only to be harshly rebuffed by a line of battle-hardened Amaz soldiers. They’d informed him that Sorcha was planning to travel north with them where Andras could never follow.

Devastated, Andras struggled to hold on to the shred of hope Valasca had given him after her own visit to those same Amaz, during which she sought out Sorcha.

“Don’t lose faith,”

Valasca urged him the evening she returned as he battled a wave of longing so acute, he wondered if his heart would fully shatter from its force. “Sorcha needs time,”

Valasca insisted. “She loves you still. I’m sure of it. But every single member of her family, save her son, is going north. The type of break with family, religion, and culture that being with you would require of her . . . it’s more than most people can withstand.”

“Yet you say to have faith,”

Andras spat out, glaring at her.

Valasca’s forthright stare didn’t waver for a second. “There are no guarantees for any of us,”

she responded, a pained look tensing her brow. “But if you’re going to hitch your wagon to some heavenly body, Andras, I’d go with the Xishlon moon. Choose love every time. Even if it breaks your heart.”

Andras chews over the memory of her words as more fireworks burst and sizzle into the shapes of hundreds of small Xishlon moons, and Konnor lets out a delighted shriek.

His longing for Sorcha surging to unbearable heights, Andras turns away from the sparkling moons and the large Xishlon moon hanging bright over them all.

Because he can’t take one more moment of the damned moon’s pull.

And then, his gaze caught by an approaching figure, he blinks and stares, then blinks again, not quite sure what he’s seeing is real. As if summoned by the Xishlon light, Sorcha is walking toward him through the purple-clad crowds, eyes full of what looks like a distraught yearning, strong enough to match his own.

Their gazes meet, and Andras’s heart explodes into a pounding rhythm. Everything surrounding Sorcha’s scarlet-clad form fades into a violet blur, her lake-blue skin tinted purple by the moonlight, her long, sapphire hair swishing behind her. Her pointed ears are rimmed with cascading silver hoops that flash the Xishlon moon’s light, the dark Amaz runic tattoos swirling over her lovely face accentuating her dazzling golden eyes.

Andras’s pulse grows even stronger, a million emotions firing in him all at once with more power than every firework in existence.

“Sorcha,”

he rasps, his voice hitching around her name, and she pauses a respectful distance away.

Tears pool in her eyes as she stares at Konnor, a look of agony tensing her features, her lips starting to tremble.

“Who is she, Papa?”

Konnor asks, clearly sensing the heightened emotions riding the air, worry in his child’s crimson eyes. Sorcha gives Konnor a wavering smile, tears spilling over her cheeks while her lips part then close again.

“She’s your mother,”

Andras answers, firm, so much pain and yearning and remorse in those words that he feels his heart may break around them.

Sorcha looks at Astrid, and Andras does, as well. His mother is eyeing Sorcha with those shrewd, piercing eyes of hers, but there’s no censure there, just a look overflowing with compassion.

Andras’s mother turns to him. “Go,”

she prods, gesturing toward Sorcha as she holds her arms out for Konnor. She glances up at the Xishlon moon and takes hold of the child before giving both Andras and Sorcha a slight smile. “The Goddess works in mysterious ways,”

she says. “Who knows, perhaps the Lupines are correct, and the deity at the heart of everything is a shape-shifter. Maybe sometimes She’s an Amaz goddess with snake and deer and white bird familiars.”

Astrid glances wryly up at the moon. “And maybe sometimes She’s a Xishlon dragon who sends down purple light from the sky.”

And then, Astrid Volya gives Andras and Sorcha an exuberant smile before she turns and walks away, hugging Konnor and murmuring happily to him as she points toward the purple moon, fireworks shaped like giant dragonflies now winging by it.

Andras turns to Sorcha, a storm of emotion upending him as he gestures toward a narrow path leading away from the dock and down toward the river’s edge. Sorcha falls in beside him, and Andras’s heart crowds his throat as they stride silently down to an isolated rocky outcropping, the purple-tinged waters of the Vo lapping at the stone where they pause.

Face-to-face.

Sorcha holds up a quivering hand, the image of IV imprinted there. “I was wrong, Andras,”

she says, voice cracking as a purple-tinted tear streaks down her face. “I love you. I have always loved you.”

She chokes on her tears, her chest heaving as she breaks into sobs. “And I love our child. I never stopped thinking about you. And I never stopped thinking about him.”

And then she drops her face into her hands, sobbing into them as Andras feels the warm slide of tears down his own face and tastes the salt on his lips.

Love for her breaking through the years of pent-up anguish, Andras steps toward her then reaches up to caress her heaving shoulder. He draws her into an embrace, and she inhales a great breath, her arms coming tight around him as she sobs against his chest. “Shhh,”

he says, the pain in his heart overwhelmingly dwarfed by the fierce love rushing in.

“The trees showed me so much,”

Sorcha tells him in a broken voice. She lifts her tear-streaked golden eyes. “I was so wrong to put anything above my love for you and our son.”

“The trees showed me so much, as well,”

Andras tells her, her beautiful face wavering through his tears. “They showed me the history of the Amaz and what led them to band together.”

He grimaces from the remembrance. “The horrors inflicted on womankind by men. The trees revealed to me how men’s cruelty fueled this division. I understand more of your struggle, now, and the struggle of the women of your family. I forgive you, Sorcha. And I have never stopped loving you.”

Sorcha’s lips tremble as she gazes up at him, vulnerability in her eyes, twin Xishlon moons reflected in them. “I’m not going north.”

She motions toward the crystalline-blue stylus sheathed at her hip. “The Forest . . . it’s given me back my Urisk geomancy. I’m staying right here, as part of Queen Freyja’s circle of geo-sorcerers. And I would give anything for another chance to be with you and our child.”

Andras smiles, all the love of Xishlon flooding through him. He glances up at the moon. “Xishlon night is a good night for new beginnings,”

he says before stepping back and holding out his hand. “Come. Let’s go spend time with our son.”