Eighteen Moons

CHAPTER ONE Twelfth Age, Year 608 Mount Arax trembled beneath Fletcher Earengale’s aching feet. Every breath of sulfuric ash burnt his innards. Dry air seared his parched throat, yet he floundered on. He and his friends were close to the summit. The Rift—a ripped seam between two worlds—lay somewhere above. What would he find when he reached it? Foolishly, Fletcher envisioned some ethereal doorway hovering in midair, an opening to Necrovar’s otherworldly prison. A shiver trembled across his skin, though the heat was unbearable. He was unprepared and ill-equipped to face the Shadow, but there was no turning back now. He’d come this far. And he couldn’t leave Keriya to fight her final battle alone. Fletcher followed Sebaris Wavewould, princess of the Galantasa, onto a ledge. Waiting for them on the flat stretch of land was Roxanne Fleuridae. The three clustered together as they caught their breath, staying close for comfort. Seba lifted a trembling hand and pointed. “Is that Keriya?” Fletcher’s chest tightened and he whipped his head around. A ghostly figure stood at the lip of a tableland a hundred heights up the steep slope. White hair streamed behind the small form like a pennant snapping in the wind. “KERIYA!” He screamed at the top of his lungs, praying his words would reach her over the low, ominous hum of the volcano. “Come back, it’s too dangerous!” Keriya took a step away from him. She was disappearing beyond the rim of the plateau. Roxanne sprang into action, racing uphill. Fletcher, spurred by a knife of panic in his gut, scrambled along behind her. “Keriya,” Fletcher choked uselessly, his voice raspy and weak. “Come back!” The hum grew louder, pressing against his ears. The ground shook ever more violently, rattling his bones and causing him to slip and crash to his knees. “We have to turn back,” Seba shouted from below. “No,” Fletcher growled. “Keriya’s up there and she needs our help!” The hum of volcanic activity became a roar. The mountain convulsed. Roxanne slid backward, knocking into Fletcher and bringing him tumbling down with her. Every impact against the craggy, porous ground felt like the clobbering of a war hammer. He sprawled on the ledge next to Seba and blinked stars out of his eyes. Smoke was unfurling from the volcano’s mouth, coiling skyward to mingle with black thunderheads. Roxanne tried to ascend again, but it was no use. A spasm rippled down the slope and a plume of scarlet lava jettisoned into the sky. Fletcher’s heart melted with despair as glutinous, blinding liquid oozed over the lip of the plateau. “This can’t be right,” Seba whispered. “I didn’t see this. We’re going to die.” “Keriya . . .” Fletcher stared at the eruption. His brain, struggling to process, could only focus on the immediate task at hand: helping his friend. “She needs us. We have to . . . to find a way—” “We have to run,” Roxanne interrupted. She took his hand, pulling him to his feet. Fletcher shook his head. How could Roxanne be so inconsiderate? How could she want to leave when Keriya was surrounded by boiling lava? He didn’t want to leave, but it seemed he no longer had command of his body. He allowed Roxanne to lead him away, stumbling in a dazed trance until another explosion knocked them both flat. He gasped, gagging on the smell of rotten eggs and burning rock. Turning to Roxanne, he asked, “Can’t your animals help? What about the phoenix you met? He’s a fire wielder. You can call him. He’ll come.” “I don’t think anyone’s coming to help us, Fletch.” Her voice was barely audible over the crackle of the lava and the wind that battered them, stirred to hurricane-like force as cold air sank onto the steaming volcano. “Not this time.” “But . . . it can’t end this way,” he argued, shaking his head in denial. “Isn’t there something we can do?” Too late. Mount Arax had finally had enough. With an almighty roar, a third explosion blasted them. Debris lanced into Fletcher. One lens of his glasses shattered. Roxanne screamed. He could see blood staining her head, neck, and back. Beyond her, Seba lay silent and unmoving. Magma rained from the blast. Massive gobs splattered on the ground and rolled toward them like terrible glowing snakes. Shakily, Fletcher reached for Roxanne’s hand and grasped it. There was no strength in her grip, but she opened her honey-hazel eyes to stare at him. There were clean lines on her brown cheeks where tears had blazed trails through a coating of grime and dust. “Goodbye,” he whispered, the sickly, coppery taste of blood coating his mouth. She made a rasping sound, unintelligible through the wounds on her neck. But she did squeeze his fingers, and he imagined for the briefest of moments that a light of hope sparked in her gaze. It faded as she lost consciousness. She wouldn’t see her death approaching, unlike him. He had a wonderful view of the magma. His skin was blistering. His eyes shriveled in the dryness, unable to summon moisture for tears. Maybe he, too, would pass out before his grisly, burning end—he prayed to Shivnath that it would be so. A fey cry split the air, rising above the roar of the volcano. It drew Fletcher’s gaze to the black sky once more. He saw a fiery apparition shimmering out of the smog, growing larger and brighter until it obscured his vision. It landed softly beside him, a golden-red nimbus dancing around its svelte form. Fletcher was surprised to find that these flames were not scalding, but wonderfully, refreshingly cool. His first thought was that it was a ghost. But—a ghost made of fire? Fletcher wasn’t sure, but that probably violated some kind of rule. Besides, as he understood it, ghosts didn’t have any effect on the physical world, yet this ghost was doing something to the magma. The fire-ghost faced the sluggish, burning tidal wave and cried out again. In response, the lava magically split apart before it reached them, rolling to either side of the specter and away from Fletcher, Roxanne, and Seba. The heat no longer touched him; he was preserved by the grace of the brilliant, cooling flames from his mysterious savior. The lava was relentless, piling up against the invisible barrier the ghost created. The buildup peaked in a blinding arc and coursed over the four of them, encasing them in a hemisphere of safety. How long they stayed like that, Fletcher had no idea. He was so exhausted, so overwhelmed, that he sank into a fitful half-sleep, waking with a start now and then, certain that death had caught up to him. But he and his friends remained safe as the lava percolated and cooled, kept at bay by the fire-ghost. A long time later, Fletcher woke fully. It was dark, but a soft golden glow permeated the space. He raised himself on shaky arms—his head spun and his body screamed in protest. Rock fragments from the blasts had lodged in his skin. Angry red welts had risen around the larger pieces. Patches of dried blood spotted his shirt. His glasses, cracked and bent horribly askew from the explosions and heat, were useless now. Reluctantly he discarded them. He wasn’t in good shape, but he was alive. Alive and well—aside from the fact that his head was pounding and he was dying of thirst. Looking around, he saw that Seba was also awake. He sent a silent prayer of thanks to Shivnath that the princess had survived. “Seba,” he croaked, catching her attention. Her narrow sapphire eyes, dulled with pain and glazed with shock, flickered to him. His throat was so dry that he couldn’t speak, so he motioned to his mouth for water. She shook her head and raised her arms. Her sleeves were in tatters, revealing that her flesh was pockmarked with dark bruises and stained with blue blood. She’d sustained far worse injuries from the explosion than he had. She wouldn’t be able to wield in her present state. He nodded miserably and turned his attention elsewhere. From the looks of it, they were in some sort of tiny cave. Yet there weren’t any visible openings in this cave. Fletcher frowned. How had they gotten here? His wandering gaze fell on Roxanne. She lay on her back, eyes closed, chest rising and falling slowly. Cuts and gashes covered her visible skin, including a deep wound on her neck that had matted her brown hair in a dark, tangled clump. Terrible though that injury was, Fletcher couldn’t focus on it; his eyes were drawn to the source of the golden light beside her. It wasn’t a ghost. It was the most beautiful bird he had ever seen. Living flames shivered at the edges of its red-gold plumage, but the fires emitted no heat. The bird’s long tail curled neatly around Roxanne’s legs. It perched on one of her knees, watching her with glittering black eyes. “What’s that?” Fletcher whispered, awed by the animal’s beauty. From the tip of its sleek, crested head to its taloned feet, he estimated it was half of his own height. “Phoenix,” Seba answered hoarsely. “Saved us from the eruption, I think. He’s been sitting with her since I came-to.” Fletcher tried to swallow, but there was no moisture to spare in his mouth. He let out a grating cough and said, “Is she okay?” Seba lifted her thin shoulders in a shrug. “Discounting the fact that the magma solidified over us, trapping us in here, yes. She’s perfectly safe from the bird.” At that, the phoenix whipped its head around to glare at Seba. It emitted a harsh chirp. “I don’t think you should call it that,” Fletcher told her. She pursed her lips and looked away, but he noted that her eyes kept flickering back to their phoenix savior. Silence stretched for ages. Fletcher had no energy to move and no will to fight. As the reality of their situation sank in—as he wrapped his mind around the explosion and its implications—the relief of survival wore off and despair claimed him. Keriya was dead. She’d walked right into the lava. She must have seen it from her vantage point . . . yet she had chosen to keep going instead of fleeing when she’d had the chance. She’d gone to her death willingly. He couldn’t say he blamed her. She’d been lost ever since she had lost Thorion. Shivnath’s impossible demands and terrible instructions hadn’t helped. It had been too much for one person to bear. Defeat Necrovar? Necrovar, the greatest wielder in the history of the world? How could the dragon god have imagined for a single instant that Keriya would be able to? Growing up in Aeria, Fletcher had been taught about the afterlife. It was comprised of two halves: the light and the dark. Shivnath ruled the light half, and the evil god Helkryvt ruled the darkness. If you were good in life, Shivnath claimed your soul in the afterlife. If you were bad, you went to the darkness. Fletcher supposed Keriya was free now—at peace in the afterlife, her soul safe with Shivnath. That was what he told himself to keep the dull ache of grief from eating away at him.