The Weaver of Shattered Moons

CHAPTER TWO

The Midnight Carriage

The world rushed back in a cold, suffocating wave. Lyra stumbled, her boots catching on a plush velvet carpet rather than the uneven cobblestones of the market. The air here didn’t smell of fried dough and open sewers; it smelled of dry parchment, expensive incense, and something metallic—like the scent of a coming storm.

"Sit," the masked man commanded.

Lyra looked around, her chest heaving. She was inside a carriage, though it was larger than any she had ever seen. The walls were reinforced with dark iron, etched with glowing runes that hummed at a frequency that made her teeth ache. Opposite her, the man in the silver mask watched her, his storm-grey eyes unblinking.

"Where are you taking me?" Lyra demanded, clutching her bone needle so tightly the sharp tip pricked her palm. "I have orders to finish. People are waiting for—"

"The people of the Lowlands will forget you by morning," the man interrupted. He reached up and unlatched the silver mask.

As the metal pulled away, Lyra gasped. He was younger than his voice suggested, with sharp, aristocratic features and skin so pale it was almost translucent. But it was the black veins creeping up his neck, disappearing under his jawline, that held her gaze.

"I am Kaelen, Captain of the Prince’s Shadow Guard," he said, ignoring her stare. "And you are currently the most important thief in Aethelgard. You’ve been stealing moonlight slivers for years, Lyra. We’ve watched you weave memories for widows and luck for gamblers."

"I was helping them," she spat, though her voice trembled.

"You were playing with the King’s property," Kaelen countered. He leaned forward, the shadows in the carriage seemingly stretching toward him. "The Shattered Moon is failing. With every year, the shards grow dimmer, and the Prince... the Prince pays the price for our kingdom's magic."

The carriage jolted as they hit a rise in the road. Lyra looked out the narrow, barred window. They were ascending the Spiral Path toward the Lunar Palace, a structure carved directly into the highest peak of the mountains, reaching toward the largest fragment of the moon.

"What do you mean he pays the price?" she asked softly.

Kaelen’s expression softened into something resembling pity. "The Prince was born with a hollow spirit—a vessel that cannot hold its own light. Every night, as the sun vanishes, his mind empties. He becomes a shell, a creature of instinct and darkness. If he does not have a 'soul' woven for him by dawn, he will eventually wake up as nothing at all."

He pointed to the bone needle in her hand. "You don't just weave fabric, Lyra. You weave essence. You are going to stitch a mind for a man who is losing his."

The carriage came to a sharp halt. The heavy iron doors were thrown open by guards in shimmering silver armor. Beyond them, the palace loomed—a terrifying masterpiece of white stone and jagged glass.

"And if I can't?" Lyra asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Kaelen stepped out and reached back to pull her onto the cold stone ground. "Then the sun will rise on a kingdom without a crown, and you will never see the Lowlands again."