Moonbound: The Lost Heir and the Peasant’s Gift

The air inside the prison cell was thick with the scent of damp stone and unwashed bodies. Chains clanked somewhere in the darkness, and the occasional groan of another prisoner echoed off the walls. The cell was cramped, barely large enough to fit the half-starved figures curled up inside. Among them, a boy sat with his back to the rough stone wall, his wrists raw from iron shackles. Apollo. He had no memory of a time before the chains. As far back as he could recall, he had been a field slave, laboring under the scorching sun, breaking his body to till the soil of the Dominion. The overseers called him “dog,” a name spat at him like filth, though he did not understand why. He had no family, no past—only endless days of toil and pain. Each morning, the cell doors would be unlatched, and the guards would haul them out like cattle, dragging them to the fields. The sun was merciless, scorching their backs as they toiled beneath its glare. Any sign of weakness meant a lashing; those who collapsed were left to rot in the dirt. Apollo had long since learned not to speak, not to fight back. The scars on his back were proof of past mistakes. But something inside him, some buried instinct, told him that this was not his destiny. Sometimes, in the brief moments before exhaustion pulled him under, he dreamed of another life—a life where he was strong, free, where his name meant something. Those dreams were dangerous. Dreams bred hope, and hope could get a man killed. Across the Dominion’s vast estate, inside the grand manor of House Vermont, a girl carefully arranged silver goblets on a polished wooden table. Phoebe’s hands trembled as she placed the last goblet, ensuring each piece was aligned perfectly. A mistake meant punishment, and she had learned long ago that the masters had no patience for error. Unlike Apollo, Phoebe had been chosen for the manor, a house slave trained to serve, to be unseen yet ever present. She had never toiled in the fields, never felt the crack of the whip on her back—but the chains around her soul were no less heavy. Her world was one of hushed whispers and stiff curtsies, of serving food she could never taste and cleaning silks she would never wear. The masters did not see her as a person, only as another tool in their collection, a shadow to fulfill their needs. She and Apollo had both been brought to House Vermont four years ago, sold by the wyvern slave masters at an auction. They were sixteen now, their childhoods long stolen. Phoebe had quickly learned that the walls of the manor were as much a prison as the iron bars that had once held them both. Yet Phoebe, too, felt a strange restlessness. Sometimes, when the moon was high, she would stand by the grand windows and gaze at the endless fields stretching beyond the estate. She would watch the slaves working even through the night, their bodies bent under the weight of their suffering. And in those moments, she felt something she could not name—an ache deep in her bones, a whisper at the edge of her mind that told her she was meant for something more. Apollo wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, pausing in his work for just a moment too long. A sharp crack followed, and pain erupted across his back. The overseer had seen his moment of stillness and responded with the whip. He bit his lip, stifling any sound of pain. “Back to work, dog,” the overseer snarled. Apollo clenched his fists, fighting the rage bubbling beneath his skin. But he couldn’t afford rebellion, not yet. He turned back to the endless fields of crops, his body aching, his spirit seething. He had to endure. As the afternoon sun bore down on them, Apollo’s vision blurred, sweat dripping into his eyes. He heard the groan of another slave beside him—an older man who had collapsed to his knees, his body too frail to carry on. The overseer’s whip cracked again, but the man did not rise. The guards approached, muttering between themselves. Apollo forced himself to look away. He had seen it happen before. Those who could not keep up were discarded, removed like broken tools. He felt the growing resentment in his chest, but there was nothing he could do. Not yet. At the manor, Phoebe stood silently as the lady of the house droned on about preparations for an upcoming feast. She listened, nodding in all the right places, though she barely processed a word. Her thoughts wandered, her fingers clenching the edge of her apron. Something was coming. She could feel it in her bones. That night, she lay in her small cot in the servant’s quarters, staring at the ceiling. The wind outside carried whispers through the halls, the kind of whispers that foretold change. She turned over, pressing a hand against her chest, where a strange warmth pulsed beneath her skin. She thought of the overseers, the cruel laughter of the Vermonts’ son, Keenan. He had taken an interest in her lately, and that frightened her more than any lash of the whip. She had seen what happened to the girls who caught his attention. She had spent nights praying she would remain invisible. But her time was running out. Somewhere in the darkness, Apollo sat awake as well, shackles around his wrists, staring at the cold stone walls of his prison. He, too, felt it—that shifting in the air, that sense that something was about to break. He did not know what it was. But he knew one thing. He was going to survive.