A Bloom in the North (Stone Moon 3)

The Stone Moon empire is ascendant... and so brutal it is forcing its own people into dissent. But when imperial enforcer Pathen Ures-emodo turns fugitive, he finds himself inheriting a decimated rebellion with a missing leader. There's no winning a war against the Stone Moon with the two hundred Jokka he has left. His only choice? To hide his people in plain sight as dutiful members of the empire... and maybe, just maybe, transform that empire from within. He has a narrow window of opportunity: the emperor of the Stone Moon is on a ship with his most steadfast enemy, sailing north in search of an answer for the mind-death. Can Pathen and his House of dissidents survive until they return? What mysteries will Roika and Thenet uncover in the north? And will the Stone Moon still reign supreme over Ke Bakil when it's over?

The final book of the Stone Moon trilogy concludes the story of Thenet, whose love for a woman started a rebellion that would change the world.

 

Excerpt From Part 1

On the strength of a kiss—and all it implied about who I’d become—I turned fugitive on a dark blue summer night in the back of a wagon outside House Laisira. As one of the Stone Moon empire’s Claws it had been my job to investigate Laisira for possible crimes, and in the course of those duties I’d discovered House Laisira was smuggling its members to the dissident Jokka on the plains.

By that time, I’d already been struggling with my conscience. I’d spent two months working Laisira’s fields, loading its wagons and following its principals nose-to-tail, and those two months had changed me. By the time I’d discovered their crimes I was already one of them... but I didn’t know it, and they certainly didn’t. To protect themselves from discovery they’d attacked me, and there I would certainly have died had Hesa not intervened: Hesa, one half of the pair I’d been sent to investigate, the neuter half, the eperu we’d been sure was indulging in perversities with its Head of Household, Darsi Laisira-emodo. I’d never found evidence of their unlawful relationship because Hesa was not in Darsi’s bed. Hesa was doing something altogether worse: it was running House Laisira. Since eperu could not by law run Households, its sin was... extreme.

But none of that, none of it mattered at all as it rested its brow against mine in the dark of the wagon. Against the canvas walls, backlit Jokku silhouettes rushed hither and yon, finishing preparations for their escape. And instead of finding some way of reporting them to the Stone Moon empire I was lying on the wagon floor, reeling from the terrible implication of my decision—that among my many other sins, I had fallen in love, unnaturally, perversely and very, very completely with Hesa.

The kiss was inevitable.

It was also magnificent.

Hesa could kiss—how Hesa could kiss! It slipped its curled tongue between my fangs and unrolled it against the roof of my mouth, caressing, and I shook under the hand resting so softly on my shoulder. When it withdrew every part of me felt alive, and this... this was what had drawn me to Hesa from the very beginning, the ferocity of its passions, the way it made me feel them too. I curled my hand into its bright red curls and made a fist among them, and the noise the eperu made....

I lunged up to kiss it again and hissed as the sudden movement broke open the thin clots over the rips my attackers had made in my chest. Hesa caught me by the shoulders, alarmed.

“Pathen—gods, don’t move. Stay.” It touched my mouth with its fingers. “I’ll fetch something to bind them.”

It left then, its stride swift, disturbing the expensive silk of its gown. From there it stepped off the back of the wagon from which it had thrown my uniform tunic with such prejudice, the wood creaking beneath the shifting weight. I lay back down with my eyes closed and rested one hand over the rents. They were clotting again but the slices were long and in a bad place, at the bottom of my chest and over my abdomen, where any movement would open them again. We bleed a great deal, though our wounds will clot quickly if allowed. I concentrated on allowing them, then. I found I very much didn’t want to die despite the uncertainty of the life before me.

Fleeing the Stone Moon? I didn’t think it possible. But if anyone could bring off such a thing, Hesa could. Hesa had a hand for business, for organization—and apparently, for secrecy—that made everything seem possible.

The wagon creaked again and then I heard the gown hissing against the floorboards. Hesa crouched alongside me and slid its arm around my back, helping me up far enough to get a bandage around my ribcage. One length only; the eperu pressed wads of folded padding to the slices, tying the bandage to hold them in place.

“There,” it said, soft, resting a hand on my collarbones. “That should hold you. Pathen... Pathen, we have a great deal to talk about, and none of it can be done until these wagons are moving—”

“Go,” I said, and drew in a breath to steady my voice. “Go to the work, Laisira.”

It smiled and lapped at my mouth once, stealing that breath. “I’ll be back.”

I lost some time then, I think. I remember watching the hurried silhouettes against the canvas wall, black against flickering pale red, orange. Heard the sound of crates being shoved over the ground, the groan of wagons settling beneath weight, the whispers and murmurs of Jokka as they worked. I could have wished to smell something other than my own blood, but the summer night was still, without even a breeze to disturb the hollow space beneath the wagon’s fabric roof.

And then my wagon shuddered and began to roll forth. I lifted my head as Hesa jumped onto the back of it and ducked inside.

“That took longer than I wanted,” it said, settling alongside me with a sigh. “Even without having to be quite so covert. You were the only one we were concerned about catching us.”

“Longer than you wanted?” I said. “It’s barely been a quarter of an hour, maybe?”

“Two,” it said, catching my hand up in its. “It’s been a little over two hours, Pathen.” It touched my cheek with the backs of its fingers, then my chest and arm. “You’re not warm, so I don’t think you took too ill from your knife.”

“Just weak,” I said. “Thirsty.”

“That I can remedy,” it said.

“And not... with honey,” I said, thinking of how I’d uncovered Laisira’s plans.

It laughed, that low rich laugh I’d found so compelling when I’d first heard it. “Not honey, I promise.”

I put my head back down. When it returned with the cup it offered me, I said, “I’m not sure wine is... an improvement.”

“I’m not sure either,” Hesa admitted. “But the water is in the other wagons.”

“Help me—?”

It looked behind it, then rose and dragged one of the crates over until it was flush against the wagon wall, closer to me. Then the eperu sat with its back to it and propped me up against its side. I drank from the cup... drank and drank until there was nothing left but a peach-colored gleam on the bottom, and then rested my spinning head against its. The eperu wrapped its arms around my shoulders and held me as the wagon rolled on: smooth, so smooth that I knew we were moving only by the sound of the rikka claws, scraping at a quick trot.

“We’re going north?” I said, puzzled.

“As scheduled,” Hesa said. “Down the road to het Noidla, by way of het Nekelmi. Sometime tomorrow night we’ll trade off drivers with Jokka awaiting us in hiding near the road. They’ll take over and keep the caravan on schedule all the way to het Noidla while we continue on foot. Westward, toward the plains.”

“Clever,” I murmured. “And these strangers?”

“Fellow dissidents,” Hesa said after a hesitation. “From het Nekelmi. We have... an agreement.”

“An agreement to help each other fool the empire?” I said, astonished.

“Yes,” it said. “They are not the only ones. There are discontented Jokka in hets Narel and Serean, too. Though our contacts south are limited.”

I looked at it, ears splayed. “And you need this truedark kingdom, why? If half the empire’s already plotting behind the emperor’s back?”

Hesa grimaced. “You make it sound as if there are so many of us, Pathen... but there aren’t. Even if all the malcontents I know of banded together we couldn’t take on the Claws of the empire. It’s too dangerous for most Jokka to turn unease into revolution. It was almost too dangerous for us.”

“But you did it anyway,” I said softly.

“Yes,” it said. “I knew from the moment ke Jurenel died that I wanted to win us free of the Stone Moon. I wasn’t sure if I could, though. And... only half the House has gone ahead of us. We’re not safe yet.”