Bitter Moon Saga Read online

  Bitter Moon Saga

  By Amy Lane

  The Bitter Moon Saga is the epic tale of Torrant Shadow—Triane’s Son—and his goddess gift; his lovers, family, and friends; and their struggle against the forces of evil. In Book 1, Torrant and Yarri no longer live in their tolerant home, and Torrant must use his goddess gift for protection if they are to survive. In Book 2, The evil from Torrant's homeland becomes too much to be ignored while he’s in school, and he must choose: will he be a healer or a hero? In Book 3, Torrant and Aylan ride to Dueance to infiltrate the Regent’s council and change policy toward the Goddess’s chosen from the inside. And in Book 4, Torrant must use his healer/poet and predator sides to save his people. If he fails, Rath will eliminate joy from the heart of the lands of the three moons, and all that Torrant and his family cherish will be lost. But success could exact a devastating cost, one Triane’s Son was never prepared to pay.

  The Bitter Moon Saga includes:

  Bitter Moon Saga: Book One

  Torrant Shadow and Yarrow “Yarri” Moon grew up sheltered in Moon Hold, a place where Torrant’s goddess gifts were meant to be celebrated, and love of any form was a thing of beauty. Unfortunately, in Clough, within a stone's throw of Consort Rath, having beliefs of that sort will get your family killed.

  Grief-stricken, Torrant and Yarri are suddenly alone against the elements and a world that would rather see them dead than see them safe. Torrant's goddess gift, which had previously been used for truth and healing, must be honed for violence and protection if either of them are to survive. When Torrant, Yarri, and their new friend Aldam reach safety, will Torrant be able to put this part of him aside? Or will Triane's Son grow to fight the forces that forged him?

  Bitter Moon Saga: Book Two

  When Torrant Shadow fled his homeland of Clough, he hoped to leave its threats behind. He spent four years living with the Moons, making sure Yarri had a home; now it's time for Torrant and his foster brother, Aldam, to leave for the University of Triannon, where Torrant hopes to create a new life enmeshed in healing arts and politics.

  Torrant's new school friends Trieste and Aylan want to teach him about love as he settles in, and at first, Trieste's tenderness seems to make her the logical choice for an interim lover, while Torrant waits for Yarri to grow up. But Torrant has learned the hard way that nothing is simple when Clough still wields its influence over their lives. More and more, Torrant must call on the cold predator in himself, the part that Aylan most admires. The truth is, Torrant has certain gifts that give him an advantage of self-defense, but using them to protect the ones he cares for may destroy the part of him Trieste and Yarri love best.

  As the four schoolmates progress to life beyond education and the evil from Torrant’s homeland becomes too pernicious to be ignored, Torrant must choose his destiny: Will he be a healer or a hero? Only Triane's Son can be both.

  Bitter Moon Saga: Book Three

  Outraged by the destruction of innocent lives and the threat to his family’s safety, Torrant Shadow and Aylan Stealth-Moon ride to Dueance, the capital of Clough, with a desperate plan: Torrant will impersonate Yarri’s dead brother, Ellyot Moon, and infiltrate the Regent’s council to help change to the government’s policy toward the Goddess’s chosen from the inside.

  But from the very first night, Torrant and Aylan are pressed into service in the shadows of the ghettoes, fighting for the lives of the brutalized people within. It’s a bitter job, made more so by close scrutiny and mockery from Consort Rath, the ruler whose policies have created the discrimination and cruelty wreaking havoc in their country.

  Torrant’s only bright moments come from Aylan, whose love and loyalty never falter, and the hungry, compassionate minds of the younger regents. Believing that all they need is a worthy song to follow, Torrant sets about leading them to accomplish the salvation of their country. But not even Torrant can be everywhere at once. When faced with one disaster too many, he realizes one man alone cannot right the wrongs of an entire government—not even Triane’s Son.

  Bitter Moon Saga: Book Four

  From the moment Torrant Shadow realized Consort Rath murdered his family, he’s lived a dual identity: a healer and poet by nature, a predator out of necessity. It’s not just exhausting, it’s perilous.

  In the deadly city of Dueance, Torrant must succeed in both lives, because while the predator may save the Goddess’s folk from Rath’s brutal policies, it is the poet who will sway the minds of the people to revolt against the oppressive government. As his cause falters, Torrant finds his worst nightmares come to pass as the people he loves most—his family from Eiran, his former lovers, and his moon-destined, Yarri—all come to his aid, despite the danger.

  They must succeed—there is no other option. If they fail, Rath will eliminate joy from the heart of the lands of the three moons, and all that Torrant and his family cherish will be lost. But success could exact devastating cost, one Triane’s Son was never prepared to pay.

  This book is, as always, dedicated to my extraordinary, beautiful, heart-filling, exasperating, practically imperfect family. This book is also especially dedicated to my sons, because if you are going to walk like men in the world, it is important to know that the hero isn’t always the guy who kills the bad guy and gets the girl in the end.

  And Mate—who will never know how much he inspires. (Because if I told him, he wouldn’t let me buy yarn to compensate for his imagined shortcomings. It’s a dysfunctional system, but it works for us.)

  Acknowledgments

  WHEN THIS book was first published, I wrote these acknowledgements for all the people who helped me put the story out myself. Although Nessa and Elizabeth and Mary and Lynn from Dreamspinner Press have been added, I think I’ll keep this first list of folks. They gave me encouragement when fans were thin on the ground, and I hope my gratitude is as forever for them as it feels for me:

  Do you know how many people it takes to make a book? I mean, I used to assume it was just the author, but now, I know better. Let’s start with my editors—this time around I managed to shanghai, con, sucker, acquire some fantastic, marvelous, compassionate, bright, funny, supportive people to help answer my prayers. (Everybody remembers my traditional prayer, right? Holy Goddess, Merciful God, Please. Let. It. Not. Suck.) I would like to thank Eric, Roxie, Bonnie, Lore, and Ceri—all of whom worked for the promise of a free book and the price of postage alone. (And in Bonnie’s case, FedEx actually tried to charge her!) These people rock, truly, and if I could make a wish for all the adults I love, I would wish that people just this wonderful drop out of heaven and into their laps to help them do that which is most difficult for them. Because that’s what these folks did for me.

  I would also like to acknowledge my blogging buddies—oddly enough, most of the people on my editing list are here too, but I’d like to add Donna Lee, Em, Galad, Lady in Red, ismarah, Halo, Sora, Perryman, Julie, Mad Mad, Knittech, Netter, Bells, Louiz, Catie, and anyone else who has ever come in and told me to hang in there, I’d survive. The vote is still out on survival, but you all still made losing my grip a lot more fun.

  Prologue

  THEY HAD not met well, he brooded, crouching in the shadows of the fetid alley. He scowled—of course they hadn’t met well; she wasn’t even supposed to be here in this dangerous, corrupt, sewer of a place. The whole reason he was here was to make the world safe for the both of them. How was he supposed to do that when she was here and he was afraid for her with every heartbeat?

  And not just her! She had brought everyone he had to worry about into the fray, and a very petulant part of him was stamping its foot and screaming that it wasn’t fair. He had worked hard—beyond hard, in fact—to come to a point where he could see his plan, his precious, angry,
vengeful, necessary plan almost at a culmination, and here she was, sticking her little upturned nose into it.

  The corners of his mouth turned upward. Yes, she had the potential to bollix everything up beyond belief. Yes, she had been infuriating tonight, giving him an ultimatum that boiled down to “abandon your bloody mad idea or let me help, you wanker.” Yes, he was terrified for her, and for the others, so terrified the very pores of his skin made the air between them vibrate with cold fear. Yes, to everything he had thrown at her during the bright and brittle waltz they had led, having a conversation beyond private in a venue that was beyond public, yes, yes, yes, he was absolutely right about all of it.

  But… his smile turned upward another notch, and his breath, which had been fast with fear and anger, was now quickened with passion and anticipation.

  But… she had looked beautiful tonight, even down to her newer, (ouch!) shorter hairstyle and the dress his old lover had thrown on her in a panic so that she’d fit in.

  But… there were no buts, he acknowledged with a cold exhale. There was no arguing with himself in this—if he denied it, it would put them all in that much more danger, because Goddess, it had been so good to see her. Seeing her tonight in that room full of enemies had been like breathing his first clear breath after months of living in the sewer. Seeing her earlier this night may have been the one bright star of beauty that would get him through this terrible, dark, and pitiless chore.

  Torrant heard his mark before he saw him and retreated deeper into the shadows, changing with his gift as he did so.

  Please, Goddess, he prayed, don’t let my murderer’s soul taint the one perfect thing in my life….

  The mark was coming closer, his “Goddess boy” held by the scruff of the neck. The poor boy was so used to being raped in alleyways that he didn’t bother to protest with more than a whimper. As Torrant prepared himself to do his job, the bitter thought began to glow in him that their families would have been appalled to know it had ever come to this….

  Part I: The Exile’s Moon

  Twelve years earlier

  Casting Perfect Stones

  THEY LOOKED like brothers but were not. Torrant’s mother had been a widow, come begging at the home of Ellyot’s parents with her infant in tow, and she and Torrant had been taken in. Torrant’s father had been the local doctor and midwife, and one night he had gone out for a call, to never return. His body had been found, savaged and cold, the next morning, and Torrant’s mother had, for reasons known only to her, been afraid the attack had been more than random. She left her home to seek shelter at the Moon enclave. When Torrant was a child, he remembered her apologizing for being too weak to keep them safe on her own, but if there had been weakness in her, Torrant had never seen it.

  In fact, there had always been strength and a quality to Myrla Shadow that had impressed the Moons of Clough in the extreme. She had volunteered to be a laundress and a maid, but her husband had delivered most of the Moon children with Myrla at his side, and so she had become the enclave healer, the lead housekeeper, a friend and equal to the family, and another parent to the Moon children.

  In all of Torrant’s memory, he had been raised like a brother to Ellyot and the twins, since forever, since before Yarri, and since before the King’s guard had become an overt part of the marauding force that overran the countryside. Although Torrant had a Goddess’s name from birth, he didn’t realize how lucky he was to be safe with the Moons.

  Torrant had learned to read alongside Ellyot. He had also learned swordplay and archery, politics and poetry. Eating at the table with Myrla and the other members of the enclave, among Ellyot’s father, mother, Tal and Qir, the older twins, he had learned family. Yarri had been born, the youngest daughter, their precious one, and he had learned joy.

  He remembered that last day.

  He and Ellyot had practiced their swordsmanship hard and ridden even harder. They had come pushing each other across the neat courtyard of the Moon hold with the rambunctiousness of fourteen-year-old boys. Ellyot, always arrogant, had swept his leg in a half circle, but Torrant had leapt above it and landed on his hands. Then he tucked into a perfect roll and came up twisting to catch Ellyot under the knee, bringing him down. Ellyot laughed, then winced as he felt the bruise to his calf, but laughed again anyway. They were just wrestling, and neither of them played dirty. Torrant won, and that was all.

  Ellyot was taller than he was and had shocking blue eyes in his tanned face, whereas Torrant’s eyes were a complicated hazel; but they were both handsome, chestnut-haired boys. Ellyot had a cleft in one cheek, Torrant one in his chin. Ellyot had a slenderness, a grace, that spoke dancer, swordsman, and courtier. Torrant had a heaviness in the chest, a tumbler’s agility, a wrestler’s strength, and when he smiled, one corner of his lip curled up, and twin grooves bracketed his mouth in a way that had made people want to make him smile since he was very young. Ellyot had the family divot in the ear, and, of course, the deadly handsome dimple. But that was all. From a distance, which is all anyone not connected with the homestead really ever saw, they were identical.

  That day, a tall soldier had approached, wearing the teal and black of Rath’s house on the tunic over his armor and in his horse’s livery. He called Ellyot by Tal’s name, and Torrant by Qir’s, and the boys looked at each other sideways and lied easily. “Yes, sir, no, sir, our father is not at home, sir. He paid his levies, sir; he’s loyal to the consort. The family is away, sir.” Then, when they were asked about worship services at the hold, Ellyot’s eyes narrowed, and his carefully politic answers melted like fog in spring.

  “My father doesn’t allow politics in his hold,” he said evenly, and Torrant had to try very hard not to dart a glance at the boy he loved like a brother. People listened when Ellyot spoke—there was an authority to his voice; there always had been. You didn’t argue with someone who could kill you when you had that in your voice, not when you were unarmed and alone.

  “I’m not talking about politics, boy!” the guard had protested. “I’m talking about religion!”

  “When you’re wearing a uniform of the crown and asking me about worship, sir, that’s politics,” Ellyot replied with the arrogance of a child who had been born and raised on the land and power he stood upon.

  “All I want to know, boy, is if your father is loyal to the Consort or not!” the guard snapped then, out of patience and obviously frustrated that he was being outconned by a youngster.

  “We’ve been raised to love our country,” Torrant said honestly, because Owen Moon was nothing if not a patriot. That didn’t mean he liked what the Consort was doing to the Goddess’s people, but Clough was horse country, and horses were in the Moon blood, and the family all loved the open plains of the valley they lived in with something akin to fever.

  “So this isn’t an island of Triane’s children, then, planning insurrection?” the man asked with narrowed eyes.

  “You can be assured that no one here would know how to plan an insurrection,” Torrant answered, and this, he knew, was the gods’ honest truth.

  But it was also the Goddess’s truth, because while Moon’s hold may not have been a hotbed of insurrection, it was a safe haven for those who didn’t feel comfortable making a living in their own country anymore. Although everybody in the hold had a place in their hearts for Oueant and Dueant, the twin gods, they also worshipped Triane, the Goddess, and that was what the Consort didn’t like. Torrant, who was named for the Goddess and who had a wizard’s gift to match, was certainly a child of Triane, and so were Ginny and Arel, two women who lived together in one of the cottages Moon had built for the workers on his land. So was Bren, who had conceived her son Orel during one of Triane’s wildings. There were over thirty workers on the fertile Moon-land: farmers, spinners, weavers, horsebreakers. Until he diced words with this man, who spoke well and stank so badly of death and lies even the nongifted Ellyot had to suppress a retch, Torrant hadn’t realized the two things he had in common with the oth
ers on Moon lands were also the two things that put the Moons in danger. When he realized that, he had no trouble lying, none at all.

  And it had gone well, right up until the man had turned away, rudely, as it seemed, and a rock had sailed out of nowhere and crashed down on his helm, pitching him out of his saddle. Torrant and Ellyot looked at each other, startled. It was not that they hadn’t wanted to crack the man a good one across the skull, but that they hadn’t had the opportunity. And they had known of the consequences if they had.

  “Dammit!” Ellyot exploded as they ran to the still form on the ground. “Where is—” Torrant held his hand up and shot a quick look at the fallen King’s man. They had lied about the family being home, and given the strength this man could bring to bear against them, it had been a good pretense to keep up. Ellyot caught himself. “Where did that come from?” he asked, gritting his teeth. He caught Torrant’s eye, looked to the oaks that arched the road to the boundary of Moon lands where Torrant himself was looking, and scowled consequence at the unseen rock launcher. They sat the man up, checked to see if he was sound, and put him dazedly back on his horse. Torrant closed his eyes hard, thought for a moment, and then staggered. A glazed, evil smile crept up the courtier’s face, and his fine horse cantered off, bearing the man’s wobbly weight with the grace of a nag with a sack of mud.

  “What did you do?” Ellyot demanded, supporting his brother, his voice frustrated and protective.

  Torrant shook his head. “Made him happy he came here, that was all.”