The Night and Its Moon by Piper CJ

Author:Piper CJ
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2022-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Seven

That was that.

Emily tried to breathe through her pain. Everything about her felt heavy, as if her heart struggled to pump paste through her body rather than blood. She would win no favors by revealing her shaking hands or her struggle to breathe. She’d always known this day was coming. Whether from their days at Farleigh or the way that Nox refused to meet her eyes even in their nights tangled in the sheets, she’d always known Nox would leave her.

It didn’t make her ready for the day once it arrived.

Emily was up before the twilight hours, helping the Selkie’s most prized possession as she packed. Her eyes raked over Nox’s midnight hair, her berry-dark lips, the curves of her body, the straight posture she wore as she moved with intentionality about the room.

She said the young woman’s name softly. “Nox?”

Nox paused, but it was clear that it brought her anxiety to do so. Her body jittered against the halt in movement. Nox’s eyes weren’t the lovely, bottomless trenches that Emily loved to tumble into. They were distracted, flat with their inability to focus.

Emily shook her head to withdraw her question. It was moot. Nox’s willingness to let the moment slide from her like rain from the roof was just another drop in the lake of evidence that Nox belonged to no one. Especially not her.

Emily wanted to offer to ride with her to Yelagin, but she knew before even asking that Nox would never entertain the idea. She knew how useless it would be to beg Nox to stay, and how heartbroken she’d be to have the one she held so dearly look her in the eyes and tell her that. Though Nox had enjoyed Emily’s intimacy and appreciated her companionship, she would go to the ends of the earth to save Amaris. Emily didn’t need to hear what she already knew.

She continued to watch Nox move around the room and convinced herself not to cry. She was in the worst kind of love: the one that would never be returned. She knew it, and yet, she couldn’t leave.

Her eyes squeezed shut as memories flooded in and out like water passing harmlessly through a net.

Emily had clung to her little sister, enviously watching Nox and Amaris together for nearly fifteen years within the walls of the mill. The pair had always been off in their little worlds, specks of black and white against the earth and its inhabitants. The other children at Farleigh may as well have not existed for all they were worth to those two. Everyone had their reasons for being spiteful toward Amaris and Nox. Their preferential treatment had made them unbearable for everyone within the manor’s miserable walls. They were set apart, and the tallest flower is the first to be cut, after all.

Emily had felt just as much displeasure when she looked at them, but never for the reasons of her peers. Why should Nox give her love so intensely and chaotically to someone

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