Page 1 of Moonstriker (The Summertide Chronicles #4)

Chapter 1

Kit Emrys (Moonstriker)

I keep telling you, you’re going to like him , Nikka said, her tone long-suffering and entirely done with me.

That fucking well made two of us.

And I keep telling you , I answered back, clipped and tense as I took a corner sharper than necessary in the car, you can’t force that to happen .

Mount Slate loomed over us, its dour black presence the only thing on the horizon for miles around. It was also the only thing we’d centered our whole fucking lives around for the last decade. It was hard not to hate the giant slab of rock for all the stress it had caused me and time it had taken up.

That’s not what a mountain is , Nikka informed me. And Slate’s not just a mountain, either. He’s a volcano .

In the moment, she sounded so fucking much like my brother Frost that I groaned aloud.

I do not need a lesson on what mountains are. Or volcanoes. I’m not a fucking scientist, and I don’t care.

In my mind, she pouted, but at least she had finally gone quiet on how much I was going to love Aubrey fucking Sagara.

She’d been telling me about it...well, in bits and pieces, since we’d bonded. First in tantalizing hints of what the future held, so that I’d ask for more. Someday you’ll be the most famous duelist in all the Summerlands . Then in concerned imperatives in the middle of the night. We have to get the families together or there’ll be a disaster. Slate could explode, and all humanity would be impacted.

Then ten years ago after I’d left home, Nikka and I made The Plan.

Painstakingly detailed and relying on too many outside people and actions to be trusted entirely, it was a plan full of holes and possible disasters. Unfortunately, one of the most important things I’d learned in my near-thirty years of life was that I quite literally couldn’t save the world by myself.

I needed help. I needed the families to start the peace process, because even if I’d been born one of them, I wasn’t a real Moonstriker anymore. In fact, I’d never been in a position to have that power, even as Delta’s supposed oldest son. I couldn’t have gotten Delta to start peace proceedings no matter what I’d done.

I’d had to wait for Adair Courtwright pressing Oberon Gloombringer, and then Rain getting attached to the idea of peace. Everyone else, from Oberon’s sister Titania to Caspian Sunrunner, had needed to come to the conclusion that peace was needed. All I’d been able to do for that situation was keep Huxley Dawnchaser in check enough to keep him from murdering everyone in Gloombringer Castle. Left to his own devices, he’d have killed not just Oberon, but Oberon’s sister and my brother and even Caspian Sunrunner, simply because they might have stood in his way in the future.

But you did save them , Nikka said, her voice annoyingly chirpy and pleased. It was hard, but not impossible, to blame her for being self-satisfied about that. We’d saved everyone’s life, after all. It had been fucking impressive, and gone a long way to mitigating my decade-old nightmare of running through a Gloombringer Castle flowing with rivers of blood.

We whipped around another corner going ten miles an hour over the speed limit, and the car gave a series of irritated beeps letting me know I’d encroached on the outside white line. Annoying. I’d wanted a new car—needed one, even—but new cars had all sorts of “features” that felt more irritating than helpful. If I couldn’t keep track of where the lines on the road were, should I even be driving?

Should you? Nikka asked. You’re being reckless. Maybe we’re the only people on the road this close to Slate, but that doesn’t mean you should be careless with your own life. You still have to finish this. We’re not done yet .

And that . . .

Well, I couldn’t lie to myself. That stung. She didn’t mean to make me feel like she only cared only for what I could do to fulfill her goals and not me as a person. That was just what happened because of how she was. She was so much like Frost that it had occasionally hurt me to listen to her after I left home. She was logical to a fault, and she always thought of The Plan first and feelings second, whether the feelings were hers or mine or anyone else’s.

It was good and helpful and exactly what I needed to keep my brain on track, because the truth was that I was a fallible, distractible human being.

It was just that sometimes it did feel like I was only a tool. A means to an end. That was what I’d been to Delta on our best days. Most of the time I’d just been an inconvenience. Sometimes, I’d been a way for her to force my father into line.

I was useful.

I’d rarely in my life been anything more than that to anyone.

Bullshit , Nikka said, breaking into my pity party. All your siblings love you and don’t see you as a tool. Your father would let the world burn for you. And Aubrey ?—

Aubrey. Always fucking Aubrey Sagara. Illegitimate son of the dead Oberon Gloombringer, Aubrey Sagara was all Nikka cared about half the damn time. He was going to save us all. He was a shining light among humans, so rare, so perfect, blah fucking blah blah.

He’s important. You can pretend you don’t like him all you want, you’re going to ? —

“Yeah, yeah,” I agreed aloud even though I was alone in the car, and there was never a need to speak aloud to have Nikka hear me. “Aubrey is a perfect little ray of sunshine and I’m going to fall hopelessly in love with him. Like something from one of those cheesy movies where time stops and string instruments play and flowers bloom. Not fucking likely, Neek. I saw the guy once, and sure, he’s cute, but he’s nothing special. I’ve fucked people way better looking.”

She gave a little humph, but didn’t bother responding.

“Nothing to rebut that? Remember that dancer in Verisa last year? She was something?—”

There’s no point in telling you the facts when you’ve decided to be stubborn. The fact is you’re going to love Aubrey. You just are. No matter how stubborn you want to be about it. Everyone is going to love Aubrey. He’s ?—

“The special-est little princeling ever to prince, I know.” I turned down the long drive to the chalet, frowning as we crossed the rather slender two-lane bridge over a jagged dip in the mountainside. That seemed precarious. It was also the only road that led to the chalet.

The chalet.

A quarter of a mile up the drive, the chalet was ultra-modern and sleek...or it had been fifty years ago. For me, now, looking at the place brought to mind bellbottom pants and olive or rust-colored kitchen appliances. It was held up on enormous wooden beams, because the mountain beneath wasn’t a flat space, but, well...a mountain. While the style could have been graciously called Tudor, with a broad sloping roof that I assumed was intended to let the snow slide off easily, the place was more window than wall.

It was hard to blame the architect, considering...

I stepped out of the car at the end of the drive into surprisingly crisp air, considering it was still the tail end of summer and not properly into fall at all. Given the altitude, though, I doubted it ever got hot here like in Verisa. But the real draw was the view. The mountain on one side, and on the other, a wide swathe of rocks and forest followed by a small town in the valley below that looked positively idyllic.

Mount Slate had snow on its cap year round, and now was no exception. As dark and foreboding as it always was in my mind, symbolizing the deaths of everyone I loved and everything I’d ever built or cared about, the fact of its presence was somewhat more benign in person.

Or rather, it looked that way. The mountain was still the most dangerous thing in the Summerlands—it just looked pretty, so I was dismissing it. I, of all people, should have known better. Early in my career as a duelist, people had dismissed me as being a pretty, useless thing.

I now had twenty-five formal duels to my name. Twenty-three people dead, two shamed, and not a single loss. Not ever.

Kit Emrys didn’t lose.

Neither did Mount Slate. It was quiet and pretty at the moment, yes, but I knew better than anyone that it had the potential to destroy everything.

He’s not so bad when you get to know him , Nikka said, but her voice was tight and strained. She sounded a little like Frost when he was trying to explain to people that Delta wasn’t the worst person alive, but even he was struggling to believe it.

I watched the distant white cap of the mountain for a moment, then turned away, sighing. If you say so. But it’s kind of hard for me to tell, when I literally can’t get to know him .

When I turned away from the mountain, a young woman was coming down the front steps of the house, smiling at me, so I didn’t have time to debate Slate or Aubrey with Nikka anymore.

It was time to play prince.

“Good morning,” she said, holding out a hand for me to shake. “You must be one of the Moonstriker contingent. I wasn’t expecting anyone to arrive until the afternoon, so the cook hasn’t made breakfast, but?—”

I shook her hand with my right, and held the other up to wave off her worries. “I don’t need anyone to go out of their way to make food for me. I stopped in town for breakfast.”

At that, she perked up. “Oh, in Yomi? They have the best pancakes.”

Contrary asshole that I was, I wanted to deny it, but that would have been a lie. The place had, in fact, served me the best pancakes I’d ever had. Sure, every bite had felt like I was tightening a noose around my own neck, but still, somehow they’d been delicious.

Yes, I was being melodramatic. But for the last decade, Nikka and I had been working on The Plan, working out every detail of what came next and next and next.

And next was almost over now.

I had to get fucking Aubrey Sagara to Mount Slate, and that was it.

The end, game over.

Yes, we’d been successful through now, even the precarious parts of the plan that relied on other people having worked out for the best, even when Dane fucking Sunrunner had almost ruined everything. But soon, I’d have no control left. I’d have to rely on Aubrey to finish the job I’d started. I couldn’t lie to myself about it, I was a little bitter about that. Relying on other people was never something I excelled at, and Aubrey...well.

Regardless, it was almost over, whether we lived or died.

Then? I had no fucking idea what I’d do next if I managed to survive what was to come.

I gave a heavy sigh and nodded at the woman, much to her apparent confusion. “Yeah, the pancakes were great.” Then I waved at the mostly empty drive. The only vehicle other than mine was a dusty, utilitarian-looking truck that had to be two decades old. None of the major family members I knew had ever dreamed of driving such a thing. “So no one else has arrived yet?”

She shook her head. “No sir. Mr. Moonstriker—that is, Mr. Frost Moonstriker—said a party would be arriving in the early afternoon and requested lunch for four.” That was sweet of Frost, clearly having included me in his number. The woman held up a hand and started ticking off fingers. “There was a Mr. Adair Courtwright who said another party of three would be arriving this evening. Lord Moonstriker said he was arriving this afternoon with Lord Dawnchaser. And the Gloom—that is, the Duskbringer called to say she was arriving with her nephew, also around lunchtime.” She glanced around, as though worried someone in the middle of nowhere on the mountainside might be listening in. “I didn’t even know the Duskbringer had a nephew. I thought she was the last of the line.”

Suddenly, I could only sympathize with the young woman, who clearly had not been warned about the myriad messy issues between all the ruling families. She had no idea who was arriving from where, or how many of them were suddenly fucking members of the Moonstriker family.

Apparently, Moonstrikers were getting around these days. Funny, given how prudish Delta had taught us all to be.

I sighed and nodded, as much to myself as to her. I was first. No one else was going to explain this mess to her, then most of them would be surprised their rooms weren’t to their liking. “Okay, so Lord Moonstriker and Lord Dawnchaser will be sharing a room. Same for Adair and the second Lord Moonstriker—his name is Rain. Delta Moonstriker will need her own room, hopefully far away from anyone sharing a room. She’s not a big fan of the idea of people having sex, like, I’m pretty sure the two kids she gave birth to involved artificial insemination. Frost will share with the Sunrunner, Ember will need her own room, and...well, I don’t know anything about what the Duskbringers are going to want.”

Yes you do , Nikka pointed out. Fortunately, she was inside my head, so I didn’t have to explain her words to the woman. When I didn’t speak up again, Nikka sighed, and if she’d had eyes she’d have rolled them. Stubborn .

“Sorry for all the complication,” I told the woman, ignoring my stone and her dramatics. “The ruling families are sort of a mess.”

Far from seeming put off, she beamed at me, shaking her head. “Not at all. It’s...it’s actually a bit of a relief. I don’t know about the rest of the world, but I was starting to worry. There was never news about any of the heirs dating or marrying. It’s good they’re finding people. This time around has been scary enough, Mount Slate shaking for months before you all came out. My father said that last time the moment there was a single quake, the families came and handled it, so I was starting to worry you’d all forgotten how. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

And that was what it all came back to. Our families had the Summerlands in a stranglehold, unable to oust us and handle the future themselves, because only we could stop Mount Slate from erupting. I wasn’t sure we deserved that power, after everything.

No. That wasn’t right. I wasn’t sure Delta deserved it, or Oberon or Dane or Huxley.

Well, no, everyone in their right mind was sure that Huxley Dawnchaser was getting just what he deserved now, sitting in a prison cell. He certainly didn’t deserve power.

But Rain? He deserved everything. I didn’t know Titania, but she seemed nice enough. Florian Dawnchaser had proven to be a happy surprise, and frankly, Caspian Sunrunner was a miracle in human skin. Or dragon skin, depending on the moment.

So maybe she was right. She...I blinked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t ask your name.”

She laughed at that, not seeming put off, and inclined her head. “I’m Zana. Mr...”

Shit, of course I hadn’t introduced myself either. “Kit. Kit . . . Moonstriker.”

At that, she gave me a weird sort of curtsey, and motioned toward the house. “Excellent. Can I show you to a room, Mr. Moonstriker? Or were you staying with one of the other guests as well?”

She winked at that, and I did not grumble at her. Just at Nikka, for feeling smug in the back of my head. “Nope, not staying with anyone else. A room near wherever you’re putting my father or brother would be good. That would be...Oddly enough, wherever you’re planning on putting up the Dawnchaser or the Sunrunner, since they’re dating them, respectively.”

She laughed and shook her head, but motioned for me to follow her. Then she paused, looking at my car, its tiny amount of passenger space stuffed with backpacks and bedrolls and such. “Would you like some help with your bags?”

I shook my head, reaching into the passenger seat and grabbing a single duffel. “Just bringing this one in. The rest of it is staying in the car for now.” She seemed relieved, and I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t looking forward to carrying most of it myself.

For at least one night, though, I was looking forward to a nice soft bed and meals cooked by a professional. Any day I could avoid damned granola bars was a good day.