Blessed are those born as the moon’s shadow veils the sun, for they are children of balance, with light in their right hand and shadow in their left.

-The Solas Tovha

Book of Ways, 21:1

I look up at the man who is my master, who is at once my tree of golden fruit and the chains that bind me to it—a sudden warmth rising in my veins as I breathe deep of his scent. Without even thinking about it, I meet his eyes and ask him a question.

“How long—?” My voice is alien, my own rasping tone overlaid with a sound like the rushing of wind and the beating of enormous wings, the hissing of snakes. But then it’s gone, fled and dispersed with what remained of my clinging shadows.

“Sixteen days,” says Khavad, eyes searching my face, flashing with something like fervor. Lightning in the clouds.

“You repelled the Earthenfolk in sixteen days?” Without the shadow-wind to back it, my voice is a ragged whisp of a thing.

“Yes, but there is more to it than that.” He jerks his head to the side, looking away from me and to the lion construct that stands in the arched opening at the far end of the cavern.

“Notify Zhama,” he snaps at it, before dragging off his cloak—mane and all—and dropping it about my trembling shoulders. He starts forward, and I quicken my pace to catch up—climbing the stair at his side. My feet are scratched and bruised, my arms a mess of crusted blood. I’m surprised my legs don’t give out beneath me by the fifth step.

Another question rises to my lips, and again I do nothing to quell it.

“What am I?

Beside me, the general slows, but he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t look at me.

“What do you think you are?”

I shake my head, lifting my hands to stare at them as if the lines of my palms hold the answers.

“I’m a Lunarborn. I must be. But the shadow—that only obeys your kind. Children of the solar eclipse.”

“Not just us,” he corrects.

I fumble for half a heartbeat, and he looks back and down at me, expression unreadable.

“Children of the lunar eclipse are not allowed to exist.”

“You think it unlikely that a parent might refuse to murder their own child? You don’t think that there are some who find other ways?”

Now I stop completely, staring up at him.

“My parents had no love for me.”

Something twists in his expression, subtle lines appearing about his eyes and mouth where before there were none.

“Perhaps they lost it when your face began to change. But when you were born, they bribed the midwife to lie for them,” He reads my expression before I can muster a response. “Yes, I tracked them down. I know more about you, Vi of Silvermane, than you ever will.”

There’s a strange way the syllables snake about each other as he says my name, a sort of sneer that could be disgust, or lust, or humor. My legs shake harder and give out, but before I can fall to my knees on the uneven stone, Khavad lifts me up again as casually as if I were a kitten. He carries me this way all the way back to my room. The rich, overpowering decadence of his scent overwhelms me, and the pulsing sound of his blood sends me into a sort of drunken trance.

The door swings open for us and he strides over to my bed, sitting upon it with me still in his arms, pulling upward with his bicep beneath my back to guide my lips to the nape of his neck.

“Drink,” he commands.

And I do.

My eyes squeeze shut as my fangs extend to drive into his flesh, stars bursting across my darkened vision as the first drop touches my lips. I draw it into me like it’s life itself, and of course—it is. Its radiance suffuses my body, invigorates my blood, stitches my wounds.

A small moan escapes me, muffled by his body as I press my lips harder to his skin. One of my arms snakes up to latch about his shoulder, the other creeping beneath his to wrap behind his back—driven by the sudden and all-consuming need to be as close to him as physically possible.

“That’s enough,” he says, and when I don’t stop he grabs hold of my lead and wrenches me away.

“I said that’s enough, fox,” he repeats, voice low as rolling thunder.

I go rigid in his arms, shocked at my own defiance.

“Forgive me,” I breathe, my voice hushed in shame as I slide off his lap. I turn from him, hands fumbling at the laces of my dress.

“If you could help me, I—“

“Stop,” he sys. “I don’t feed that way.”

“Why?” I don’t understand how I’m so bold with him now, why my training is falling away like a shed skin, but I do know that it’s got something to do with the shadow. “Why don’t you? And if you don’t, why do you have me? And Bastren—?”

His expression darkens.

“Can you imagine no other purpose for yourself or your kind than as a source of energy and pleasure for others?”

My blood cools, and I search his eyes and body language for a trap. Is that not what I’m supposed to see myself as? But indeed, I can think of one other use. I can think of soldiers, fighting with moonlight in their hands and blood on their faces.

“It is…an exchange.” I manage at last, searching for more words and finding none.

He laughs, and this time I’m reminded of two things—the House’s low chuckle, and the laughter in the darkness. But it doesn’t grate against my bones, but instead resonates in my flesh. A much more pleasurable hurt.

“My blood, for your body and soul. My blood, for your freedom.” He shakes his head, but says nothing more to me, instead standing up and turning to the door.

“Do you have any idea what you could have cost me?” His voice is a low growl now. He paces closer, and the lion-face construct on my door clenches its jaw.

“Do you have any idea how rare she is?” He lowers his voice, a threatening hush. “How vital?”

“If I had done things your way, she’d never have been ready in time,” says the house, voice steady, unphased. “And I was right. It worked.”

“You’re lucky it did, because if it hadn’t, I’d have ripped you from this manor and purged you of existence, ancestors or no.”

“Yes, you’d have enjoyed that, wouldn’t you?”

“Not enough to compensate for the loss.”

There’s a knock from the other side, and my master opens it—stepping aside to make way for Zhama.

They exchange little more than a glance, then he sweeps out of the room and the door thuds shut.

“Oh child,” says the housekeeper, gesturing at the middling servant who joins us moments later to fill my tub. Her lips open as if to say more, but then purse into a hard line. Placing a hand lightly to my back over the tangled mess of my hair, she leads me to the washroom.

About an hour later, Zhama and her assistant leave me with promises of food to be sent up shortly. My hair is clean now, my beads and silver rings re-strung. My skin gleams with oils that smell of spices, woods and flowers I don’t recognize. I wear a black dress edged with moonlight that laces at the sides and back, layered over a cloud-soft chemise.

My armoire is filled with such dresses now, and an array of other garb at that—all of it meticulously crafted of the finest materials. More than a little of it dragon leather, supple and strong and darkly iridescent. I run my hands over it in awe, marveling at its beauty.

When the promised meal arrives, I devour it all with my hands, gravy and berry juices dripping between my fingers to spatter across my plate. I sop it up with the herb bread, every last bit of it. Pull apart the hard cheese full of crushed hazelnuts and shove it into my mouth and follow it with several whole fried fish the length of my fingers.

As I’m finishing, the house roars for my attention—my master’s at the door. I scramble to clean off my hands, calling for it to let him in as I stand to face him.

“Sit.” He says. “Please.”

Obeying, I return to the chair before my room’s small dining table. He remains standing.

“It was true when I said that we’ve repelled the Earthenfolk’s initial advance,” he begins. I clasp my hands in my lap, doing my best to regain my composure, to wear my training like armor as I prepare for whatever else he might say.

“But they have merely fallen back for the time, and they’re rallying their forces for another push. The king has made a decision—he will no longer wait in defense as they continue to harry and test us. We will push south and retake the territory we lost in the Sunder.”

“Then why are you back?” It’s frightening, how easily I shrug off my armor—but I have to know.

“I was allowed back to retrieve supplies and those of my household who are to join me in the war camp,” he says.

“You’re taking me with you,” I say, and though I mean it as yet another question, it comes out as a statement of fact.

“Yes,” he says, eyes searching mine now. “You’re coming with me.”

The connection between us pulls taught, calling up wisps of shadow to dance about my feet, to twist up my skirts. And when I mean to exhale, words bleed out with my breathe.

“Is it true, what they say about you?”

His gaze doesn’t waver.

“Is what true?”

“That you killed your own father?”

“Yes.”

“Entire armies.”

“Yes.”

“Devoured their light, their lives.”

“Yes.”

A shudder flows down my spine.

“When do we leave?”

“A week from now.”

Dipping my head, I break the connection at last—though adrenaline snakes though my veins, and I can’t help but wonder if he can smell the thrill of fear on me…or taste it. Certainly he can feel it. His stance shifts, hands flexing compulsively.

“Very well,” I say, flowing back into the rabbit-voice, the mask of softness. Though a distant part of me whispers why bother, when he’s seen the truth of you laid bare? “Will you do my whippings, now that you’re back?”

He pauses, halfway to the door, and answers without turning.

“You shall have your pain again when I say so, and not a breath before. Until then, I forbid you all deliberate physical harm.”

“What? No!” My hands slap over my rebel lips, but the words are already out.

Genera Khavad turns then, and though his face is impassive, his hand is not. He extends it toward me, and the matching cord about his wrist and my neck flares with sudden brilliance. I hurtle forward, dragged at the end of my lead until he catches hold of it, the only thing keeping me from falling backward as I crane my neck to look up at him. Though my hands fly up to clasp around his where it grasps my lead, I repress the instinct to fight against his hold.

“Would you care to amend that answer?” With a tone like that—rich with the promise of punishments even I couldn’t enjoy—there’s no need for threats.

“Yes.” My voice is a strangled, wounded thing. “Yes, my Khai. I will obey.”

“Good fox,” he says, releasing me. “Now rest.”