When the Moon Hatched

After eight days of travel with her dragon, Zekhi, Veya enters The Fade. Her usual hired escort, Noeve, leads her through treacherous paths that allow them to travel unnoticed. Noeve tells Veya that the Queen attempted to stall an execution of a member of the Fíur du Ath, which angered King Cadok. When Noeve inquires about the reason for Veya’s travel, Veya admits that she left something important in Gore 100 years ago that she wishes to retrieve. She tossed a bangle down a rubbish chute, and she believes that it is now in the hands of a velvet trogg—a long, lanky creature with blue, velvet skin that likes to hoard and feast on the memories contained within trash.

Since crying in Kaan’s arms after hearing him play her parents’ song, Elluin has not seen him for the past seven days. He still leaves a fresh meal and a small stone carving of a dragon by the hutch door daily, but she misses his presence. Elluin feels increasingly frustrated at the feelings for Kaan festering inside her, and she channels this frustration into her sparring sessions with Veya.

Veya rappels down a trash chute and into a velvet trogg den in Gore. She discovers the creature feasting on an old chair while wearing her silver, gem-encrusted bangle as a small crown. The trogg is unwilling to give the bangle up without something in return. Veya offers her mother’s málmr, which she stole from her father, King Ostern Vaegor, when she was 17. She also offers to let the trogg keep the bangle’s catch chain. The trogg accepts the deal and returns the bangle to Veya. The deal satisfies the creature, who allows Veya to leave with her life.

Kaan returns but doesn’t explain his absence. Elluin notices a fresh scar on his arm and a necklace containing a circular pendant of a silver Moonplume and a red-black Sabersythe bound together. Kaan plays her song for her, and Elluin sings. Afterward, Kaan kisses her passionately. Someone bursts into the hatch and nearly catches them kissing. Despite the danger of entertaining romance with Kaan while promised to his brother, Elluin feels empowered by his affections.

Raeve traverses the jungle, bathes in a spring waterfall, and gathers berries and nuts she carries back to the forest dwelling. She regards the diary she acquired from The Curly Quill and gives into the urge to write.

Raeve writes about her attempts to leave, but every time she sets out, she only returns with new supplies to continue her stay. She’s begun patching up the dilapidated interior of the dwelling. She feels completely at home here for the first time in her life. Raeve imagines the romantic happiness she might have enjoyed here with Kaan when she was Elluin. Slowly, she’s come to realize that Kaan fell in love with a past version of her that was softer and kinder than who she is now. That past version was open to loving others in a way Raeve is not. She wonders why her past self left and how she ended up losing Kaan, herself, and her dragon. She fears that confronting those truths will bring her too much sadness, and instead she is determined to let this go for good eventually.

Kaan returns from his trip without Grihm. He is greeted by dozens of parchment larks waiting for his signature to approval various political agenda items. Pyrok informs Kaan that Raeve is still around, buying items from various shops at the markets.

Pyrok asks if Kaan will attend The Great Flurtt celebrations—a rare phenomenon where the aurora duplicates, spilling ribbons of light across the sky. Fae tend to dance together and mate during this time. Kaan remembers the last Great Flurtt as the last time he saw Elluin alive. The following day, he flew off to help rebuild a village and returned to discover Elluin’s dragon carrying her body up to the sky. He does not look forward to this Great Flurtt due to the negative memories associated with it.

After Pyrok leaves, Kaan drifts toward his balcony and sees someone moving in the distance. With a seeing scope, he’s able to see Raeve stepping from stone to stone near a creek, looking sun-kissed and content. When she pauses to gaze longingly in the direction of Rygun’s hutch, Kaan has the slightest bit of hope that she is looking for him.

Elluin, now 19, writes in her diary about her admiration for Kaan’s kindness and fairness as he oversees a Tithe in his father’s absence. He reminds her of her own parents. Though her father did not share King Ostern’s values and did not respect him, she knows that he would have respected Kaan. When their eyes meet across the room, the distance between them becomes charged. Elluin decides that she is done living the life she’s told to and will now live the life she wants for herself.

Raeve is awoken from an intimate dream of Kaan by the screeching of dragons and the alluring call of distant music. Curious as to what is occurring, she dresses and heads for the main city. She overhears a conversation between merchants about The Great Flurtt. Many believe that the mating dragons during this time will cause an influx of fertilized eggs afterward.

Though she desires to join the city celebrations, Raeve forces herself to turn her back on the city and return to her dwelling. On the return trip, she finds a black, woven basket hanging from a nearby tree branch. She opens it and finds a delicate mask, a silken gown and slippers, and a sun-shielding poultice. The final item is a piece of parchment folded around Kaan’s málmr. The parchment is an invitation to dance with him. Raeve decides to pretend for this special occasion—to let down her walls and open her heart to him. She sees it as an opportunity to say goodbye to their past relationship before she erases the memory from her mind for good.

When Elluin intends to meet Kaan one evening, she’s only greeted with a parchment lark and a key. She folds the parchment lark’s activation line, and it takes flight, leading her out of the hutch, down a shadowed tunnel, across a pebbled shore, and into the jungle, where she comes upon a dwelling carved into a cliff. Kaan is inside with a stew prepared, and he gifts the dwelling to her. Elluin happily accepts it as their place.

When Raeve is dressed and ready, she’s greeted by Pyrok, who escorts her to the celebrations. They eventually come to a path that forks in three directions. Each path leads to a replica of a different dragon nesting ground. Though Pyrok points to the rightmost option, Gondragh, as the path Kaan took, Raeve takes the leftmost Netheryn path.

Within the Netheryn-themed dome, Raeve is drawn toward icy pillars. Pyrok claims that a game table lies beyond the guarded pillars for the rich who have a lot of gold to waste. Raeve takes the gold from Pyrok’s pockets and forges forward to a table containing a group of men and an octimar—a bulbous creature with magic capable of keeping people contained to their word. When it becomes clear that Pyrok doesn’t like the men and Raeve suspects them of mistreating him in the past, she decides to join them for a few rounds. She only has enough gold to buy in, so she wagers favors as currency.

Raeve wins several hands in a row, winning all the money from the arrogant men. Kaan arrives and demands that the men leave, while Raeve notices that Pyrok has disappeared from where he’d been watching her earlier. Raeve confronts Kaan about her resurfacing memories. He reveals that she was bound to another male and implies that she gave Kaan up willingly for someone else. Raeve finds this hard to believe. Kaan admits that he has continued to love her anyway, saying that he would love her even if she flayed him down the middle.

Raeve offers Kaan a wager on a game of cards, and he accepts. Kaan asks Raeve to answer three questions if he wins. Raeve wagers that if she wins, they will pretend for the night to be the couple they used to be, but the following morning, he will owe her a wish. When Kaan asks what she will wish, Raeve admits that she will have a Mindweft erase him from her brain and that she will return to her previous reality. They are bound to their wagers by the octimar and bound to the table until the game is through.

Raeve wins the hand, and Kaan closes off. He believes that her fantasies of “pretend” for the night include sex without feelings, but Raeve intends to fully give into the feeling of love, if only for one night. Despite his standoffishness, Raeve grabs Kaan’s hand and asks him to dance.