Moon Rite: Book One Legend of the Ancients (The Books of Locurnia 1) by Deonne Dane

Author:Deonne Dane [Dane, Deonne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Onyx Publishing
Published: 2020-09-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

The old woman’s demands on top of the events of the morning left Falric in a state of turmoil, both terrified and curious at her persistent interest.

None of this was his doing. Not his finding of the gem. Not Raeden’s death nor the curia’s wild assertions and neither the fate of poor Brokos. Everything that had gone on went on despite him. He had been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Fortunately, the scroll master retreated, taking her menace with her. Her subdued entourage followed, carrying away the prince’s body.

Staring in their wake, a feeling of relief settled over him.

“Falric?”

His mother approached and a quick scrutiny showed pity enveloping her features. Pity for him? A flush of anger returned. It was not needed nor welcomed.

A perverse part of him blamed her for his predicament. If she had not gone to the bed of a man of Draca, her child would have been fully Voce and far from this mess. The maki would have no interest in him and he would not have to prove his worth to anyone.

Of course, that child would not be him, nor suffer the obligations that hounded him, but Falric could not imagine never having existed.

The ferocious glare Falric gave quelled his mother’s advance, a glimmer of pain and resignation flashing in her eyes. He did not relent.

Turning, he made for the edge of the clearing, bound for no place in particular, just away from her and the memories that insisted on following. Still the power of her gaze shivered down his back, but she did not follow. Deigning to give him space he supposed, hoping that he would come around. She would learn, his determination was not a trifling thing.

His feet took him to the north of the summer grounds to the old ruins. Sandblasted and faded to pale ghosts, the columns, like solitary monoliths supported nothing but clear blue sky. The remnants of cobbled roads wound through a nest of singular pillars and broken stone walls. Centuries had levelled many of the structures to piles of rubble, others subsumed by the shifting sands, but what was left held him in awe.

All around him, peace reigned. No humans but him to upset the furtive existence of Nord’s small creatures who had made the ancient ruins their home. Lizards, scorpions even a scrawny cat prowled its confines.

Finding the remnants of what had once been an elegant bathhouse, Falric sat in its shade and contemplated the insignificant spring-fed square pool at its centre. It was large enough to hold only one or two. How decadent their lives must have been that they could afford such a luxury.

Legend had it that the fallen city had belonged to the very prince Venner had spoken of that morning. Prince Mikko, doomed never to return; his people abandoned to judgement without mercy for his supposed sin. Falric had little faith in the old myths, drought and famine were the most likely culprits, but that made for poor reading.

Time might

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