When the Moon Hatched

Elluin, now 20, falls in love with the dwelling and the life she makes with Kaan there. Kaan gifts her his málmr. He collected the scale of the rare Great Silver Sabersythe to craft the pale Moonplume half to prove that he was worthy of the love they share. Elluin clings to the necklace and pours her love into it. She begins to realize that the thought of losing Kaan is terrifying.

Raeve wakes in Kaan’s arms. She remembers becoming drunk and wasting the wish she won during the hand of cards on wishing Kaan would hold her throughout the night. When she attempts to leave to have her memory erased, Kaan convinces her to stay. He insists that they must have a serious conversation, but Raeve intends to delay this as long as possible.

Raeve and Kaan become sexually intimate again, and Kaan manages to convince Raeve not to erase her memories of him. Afterward, Kaan tells Raeve that she must soften her heart or else she is “going to break someone who’s not attuned to being stabbed through the chest by [her] reluctance to build connections” (628). The words remind Raeve of how she discarded Nee, and she wonders if the parchment lark was delivered to the correct person after all—if someone needed her but she discarded them out of fear.

During the Great Flurrt celebration, King Ostern, Cadok, and Tyroth join Kaan, Veya, and Elluin in Doom’s Imperial Stronghold. When they berate Veya, with whom Elluin has become friends, she becomes defensive, earning the ire of the three cruel men. In 30 days, King Ostern intends for Elluin to marry Tyroth and join him in Arithia. She and Kaan avoid thinking about their impending separation for as long as possible.

Raeve is content in her bubble of “pretend” with Kaan but has the feeling that something will soon disrupt their perfect paradise.

When King Ostern waves off his sons and daughter on the morning after the Great Flurrt, he confronts Elluin about her dalliances with Kaan. He knows that she is with Kaan’s child and threatens the lives of Slátra, Kaan, and Veya should Elluin not obey his every command. He orders her to prepare for the binding ceremony tomorrow morning and pretend that the child she’s carrying is Tyroth’s.

Raeve dreams of The Scavenger King burning her all over with his ability. He refers to her as the Fire Lark and claims that the pain hardens her, making her more formidable in the fighting pits and bringing him extra money. He promises her that when he wears a bronze crown and takes his rightful throne, she will be beside him enjoying the spoils of her battles. When Raeve awakens, Kaan asks her about the Fire Lark she had been muttering about, but she ignores his prying questions.

Their discussion is interrupted by the arrival of a screeching Moonplume, who flies toward the hutch of the Imperial Stronghold. Upon it is Rekk Zharos, who is serving as an emissary for The Shade—as noted by the white flag tied to his dragon’s tail. Though Raeve yearns to reach the castle and slaughter him on sight, Kaan doesn’t want a war between his brothers.

Kaan leaves Raeve in the dwelling and goes to deal with Rekk Zharos. He is angry about the near-death state of Líri, the Moonplume whom Rekk forced to fly through the deadly conditions of The Burn. He arranges for the Moonplume to receive medical care and for Rekk to return on a Moltenmaw capable of handling all elements.

Rekk reveals his reason for visiting. He is searching for Princess Kyzari of The Shade, who went missing just after her anointing. While Kaan doesn’t know her whereabouts, he isn’t inclined to help Rekk find her, as Rekk is interested in courting her and Kaan doesn’t believe the bounty hunter is worthy of her.

Raeve waits as long as possible before leaving the dwelling and scaling the rock cliff toward the hutch where the keening Moonplume landed. She finds it curled in a small patch of shade and comforts it while studying its many severe injuries. She tells the dragon of her own wounds to comfort it. Her spotty memories make her believe that she also failed her own Moonplume, Slátra, long ago, and she promises that no one will ever hurt Líri again.

As a healer tends to Líri, Raeve speaks to her in a different language. When the healer asks how she knows the southern tongue, Raeve is baffled: She does not remember having learned this language. The healer expresses concern for Líri’s pain and how it must affect Raeve, for “anyone who’s been through the process knows how much it hurts” (674). The mysterious process she refers to is left unrevealed, especially as Raeve makes her promise not to speak of it to anyone, including King Kaan.

When Kaan meets with Raeve afterward, she tells him about how Rekk murdered someone she loved and then whipped Raeve repeatedly. With this new information, Kaan informs Raeve that Rekk will be stopping in the neutral city of Bothaim on his return journey home. The neutral territory is the best place for her to hunt him down and murder him while also avoiding any potential political ramifications.

Elluin and Slátra leave for Arithia after being bound to Tyroth in marriage. She leaves a note for Kaan filled with lies, claiming that Tyroth is a more gifted sire and will ensure that he maintains the strength of her family line so that they may continue to protect the Aether Stone.

Rekk returns to Bothaim after searching Dhomm and finding no evidence of Kyzari. He arranges for a woman to entertain him for the night but finds Raeve in his private quarters. She whispers Clode’s song to strangle him and stabs him with an iron pin, nullifying his powers.

The Other takes control of Raeve’s consciousness again to torture Rekk. The Other thinks like a dragon and seems to love Raeve fiercely, suggesting that Slátra is somehow in partial control of Raeve’s consciousness. The Other kills Rekk by burning his face, demonstrating to him how it feels for Moonplumes to fly through The Burn.

Veya arrives in Arithia and uses her shapeshifting bangle to disguise herself as a servant named Ayda. She has a brief encounter with Tyroth, which reveals that Ayda carries Tyroth’s bastard child. Though Veya has the urge to kill her brother then and there, she refrains for Kaan’s sake.

Veya searches Tyroth’s room for Elluin’s journal and finds it tucked into a crevice in the wall behind the bed. Too impatient to wait, Veya flips to the final journal entries, which reveal her father’s blackmail of Elluin and the fact that her child—Kyzari—is Kaan’s. Her journal entries reveal that a Bloodlace arrived to test the lineage of Elluin’s baby, and though she hadn’t given birth yet, she knew Tyroth would discover that the baby is Kaan’s. Her last entry also reveals that she knew she would soon die.

The Scavenger King, Arkyn, admires the latest young female fae he’s procured. She resembles his Fire Lark, yet while his Fire Lark was of few words, Kyzari often rambles in tirades that make no sense. Arkyn offers Kyzari a blank paper to sign her name on, claiming to offer her release. Internally, he resents the plush life that Kyzari has led—a stark difference from his own cast into the Botanic Plains and being “told to run while a roar of fire nip[ped] at [his] heels” (709). He plans to soon reclaim the bronze throne of The Burn, which he believes rightfully belongs to him. He folds the signed piece of parchment into a lark, whom he then sends to Kaan, whom he believes to be her uncle. On its way to Kaan, the lark passes another—“a small, wobbly one with a tear in its wing and a blood splotch on its tail” (710). The lark, Nee, lands in Kyzari’s lap—dutifully returned to its sender.