Bitter Moon Saga by Amy Lane

Author:Amy Lane [Lane, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ya
ISBN: 978-1-63477-559-5
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2016-05-11T16:00:00+00:00

THE TAILOR was surprised to see him and even more surprised at the gratitude.

“I was just doing my job!” he exclaimed, taking twice the tip Djali had suggested from Torrant’s hands nonetheless.

“Your job has nothing to do with keeping me from looking foolish and yet you did it anyway. Triane’s best frock, my friend, having the first cloak done last night alone was worth twice that tip!”

But to his dismay, Coryal’s face blanched white, and the look of shock was enough to tie Torrant’s tongue up in his mouth with fierce knots. “Sir, young sir…. Don’t spill that name here. Please, for my sake, not in my house….”

Torrant closed his eyes and mentally slapped himself. “My apologies,” he said, bowing with full sincerity. “I had no intention of causing offense. In my home, Triane’s name is always welcome. I didn’t mean to put you in danger.”

The tailor nodded, then closed his eyes and swallowed. “Your home? Eiran, right? That’s how the gossip runs.”

Torrant nodded and smiled, grateful the hunched and hunted look had lifted.

“Do they really… love her children, there in Eiran?” he asked with a terrible wistfulness in his voice.

“Yes,” Torrant told him, thinking of the Beltanes he’d attended, with the handfasts and the dancing and the township spreading its arms to all the citizens, celebrating their humanity under the spring sun.

Suddenly the tailor’s voice dropped, and he rabbitted a glance out his window, his entire posture screaming I want this kept private! “I don’t know if you want to know this or not, young Moon, but I was in the consort’s rooms this morning, and he was furious. It seems he’d ordered some sort of purge in the ghetto last night, and the results were three dead guards and an entire company locked up in their own manacles. He doesn’t have many to send out again tonight—too many injuries—but he’s pacing the carpet, trying to order the secretary general to pull more troops from the outside of the city to take care of this menace.”

Torrant nodded, trying to keep his face neutral. This was good to know, even if all it told him was that he might get some sleep this night. “Does this menace have a name?” he asked, curious.

“No, and it’s making them both rabid. It seems there’re other crimes that have the same description—a terrible creature, half man, half beast, who can fight like the tides at eclipse or the winds in the blizzard season, and no one has a clue.”

Torrant nodded and searched the tailor’s face for some signs of dissembling. “Why have you not left the city?” he asked gently. He wasn’t sure what the man’s affiliation with the Goddess was, whether he dyed his hair to cover a white streak or monitored his appetites so no one knew his choice of bedmates, but he was obviously as afraid of being seen for who he really was as he was desperate to have some hope of liberation.

“My… my friend. He’s in the ghettoes. I can’t leave him….

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