Page 3 of Sun, Moon & Shadow (Fate of Aemoria #1)

The absurdity of what she’d done struck her like an arrow as soon as she heard the latch fall into place, and she turned to face the imposing figure standing in her kitchen.

Water dripped from his charcoal cloak and brown boots, a puddle forming on the slate tile beneath him.

Nova took several backward steps before bumping against the wooden worktop in the center of the room.

She glanced down at her flimsy shift and the letter opener still clutched in her hand.

Nova slapped the paper knife down on the worktop and spun around, searching the room for anything to serve as a robe.

The best option was Agnes’s apron hanging on a hook by the hearth.

Nova snatched the flour-dusted smock, slipping it over her head and tugging the strings tight behind her back.

Finally, she turned to face the stranger who stood motionless, observing her.

She could see him more clearly in the candlelight, though his hood still obscured his face.

Beneath his cloak, he wore a gray tunic and black breeches, his leather boots reaching just below his knees.

His clothing was well-made but rumpled, the soles of his boots caked with mud.

Brown leather bracers covered each wrist, and a dagger sat sheathed at his right thigh.

His broad shoulders spanned the doorway, and, while Nova was taller than most women she encountered, this man’s chin could rest comfortably atop her head.

She cleared her throat, ridding her voice of any emotion before she spoke.

“What do you know of my mother?” she asked, motioning for him to sit.

He crossed to the small table and lowered himself onto a dining chair, the seat looking decidedly dainty beneath his large frame.

“Her name was Elena,” he began, his voice low and smooth. He laid his right hand flat on the tabletop and rested his left on top of a long, muscled thigh. “She arrived in Timberfell roughly twenty-six years ago.”

Nova regarded him with interest as he spoke but kept her expression blank, her arms folded across her aproned chest.

“She was a healer,” he continued.

Nova blinked. She hadn’t realized her mother’s interest in plants was anything more than a hobby.

She crossed to the sideboard where the candleflame flickered lower and lower, the wick nearly spent.

Keeping a watchful eye on her visitor, she rifled through the top drawer for a new taper, lighting it on the old one’s flame just before it extinguished.

The small kitchen was bathed in warm light.

She placed the candlestick in the center of the table where her visitor sat, taking the chair opposite him.

The light illuminated Callan’s face below his hood.

He appeared to be roughly her age. He had the look of a hunter or a tracker.

Someone often on the road and accustomed to sleeping under the stars.

Damp strands of dark hair fell across his forehead.

Stubble covered his strong jaw and edged his full lips.

His eyes in the candlelight captivated her.

Brown with vibrant gold striations, they glinted against his warm brown skin, reminding her of the tiger’s-eye gemstones from the southern shores she’d once seen for sale in the market.

Nova closed her eyes briefly, reining in her racing thoughts. “Did you know her?” The question felt silly even as she asked it. He could have been no more than a few years old when her mother died.

“No. But I know someone who did.” He leaned forward, placing both hands flat on the table in front of him, as if bracing himself. “Someone who wishes to see her again.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Nova said flatly. “My mother died bringing me into the world.”

“It’s true no one has seen your mother in many years, but she didn’t die the night you were born.”

“I don’t understand. What do you mean?” Fighting the impulse to laugh at the absurdity of the conversation, she leaned in closer, eyes narrowed.

“Your mother didn’t die,” he repeated, his voice dipping lower. “She returned to her home in Aemoria. The Fae Realm.”

Nova stared at him dumbly for a beat, unable to form coherent thoughts, let alone speak.

“Your mother was Fae,” he clarified, his eyes locking with hers.

Nova’s chest seized as if her breath had been stolen, whether by the revelation or the effect of his gaze, she couldn’t be certain.

“And how would you know that?” she whispered, an almost imperceptible tremble in her voice, born of equal parts disbelief and hope.

“Because I’ve traveled from the Fae Realm to find you.” He shifted in his seat and lowered his hood.

A bright light filled the room, seeming to shine from within him.

The ends of his dark hair brushed his shoulders, the strands damp and slightly wavy.

Silver flecks glistened on his cheekbones, standing out against his rich complexion and drawing her attention to the fine points of his ears.

For an instant, gone was the road-weary tracker, and in his place sat a regal Fae male.

The sight of him left her breathless.

Nova sat stone-faced as a shield fell back into place, putting a damper on Callan’s light. Her heart thundered in her chest, so forcefully she was certain it must be visible through her thin gown. She rose from her seat, battling the urge to start pacing before the hearth.

“If my mother is Fae,” she asked, “what does that make me?”

Callan stood, taking a tentative step toward her. She did not shrink away from him.

“It makes you Fae, as well.”

“But my father was a mortal man. He died only two years past.” Her words spilled out of her. The unsettling image of her father’s pale face flashed in her mind once again, but she shoved it aside.

Her grip on her composure was beginning to slip. Suddenly, the room was spinning.

“Nova, sit,” Callan said firmly. He took her hand in his, and an unmistakable rush of energy shot through her at his touch. She stifled a gasp, nearly yanking her hand away. He guided her back to her seat, and she fell into it.

“I’ll tell you a story.” He crouched before her, speaking in a low, lilting voice, as if soothing a skittish horse.

“There once was a Fae female who fled to the Human Realm. There, she wed a human male and gave birth to a Fae child. A daughter she shielded with a glamour set to expire on the twenty-fifth anniversary of her birth. Once the glamour faded, her true nature would no longer be hidden in the mortal lands.” He paused. “That child was you.”

Nova felt as if she’d sunk underwater, her movements slowed, Callan’s words muffled and almost unintelligible.

She stared at his hand loosely holding her own, unable to decide if she was offended by him speaking to her as if she were an upset child, or grateful he’d sought to find a way to soften the blow.

“Your mother left this for you,” he said, releasing her hand and reaching into a small leather pouch at his hip. He produced a folded parcel of yellowed parchment. Nova peeled open the package and tipped it, something solid scratching along the aged paper as it slid out then landed in her palm.

A ring.

Nova pinched her brows together. A simple silver band set with a white oval stone. She turned the treasure over in her hands, holding it up to the light and examining it closely. It certainly looked like the ring from her mother’s portrait.

Nova slid the ring onto her finger, calling to mind a dream she often had as a girl.

In it, she would see her mother calling out to her from the Wood, glowing faintly like an apparition, her voice a distorted, faraway echo.

Each time Nova neared, her mother would vanish, reappearing a short distance away and calling her name once again.

A wisp luring Nova deeper and deeper into the forest.

Looking back, Nova always considered the dream a manifestation of the childish wish she’d kept hidden in her heart: that her mother was not dead.

That one day they would be reunited, far from her lonely existence in Timberfell.

Now, she wondered if perhaps the dream was a vision planted by her mother.

An invitation extended all those years ago.

“What part do you play in all of this?” Nova murmured, slowly spinning the band around her knuckle.

“I’ve been sent to collect you.”

An image flashed in her mind: Callan slinging her over his broad shoulder and carrying her back to the Fae Realm. The thought sent an unexpected thrill along her spine.

“Time is short,” he said, pulling her from her thoughts. “We have only hours before the glamour expires. You can’t be in the Human Realm when that happens. You won’t be able to hide your true form, and I suspect the townsfolk won’t take kindly to a Fae living among them.”

Callan held her gaze, still kneeling on one knee before her.

Nova clasped her hands tightly in her lap, mind reeling.

Superstition would have her believe that one should never trust a faerie.

She searched his eyes, finding nothing but sincerity there.

Deep within her, smoldering like an ember, was an inexplicable but overwhelming sense that she could trust him .

“I suppose I ought to get dressed first,” she said as she stood and tugged at the apron strings.

Nova braved the chill of her father’s chamber for the second time that day, seeking some of his old clothes, still neatly folded in the armoire.

Though baggy, the brown breeches were the right length thanks to her height.

The gauzy, cream-colored shirt hung loose about her shoulders but concealed her stays underneath.

She pulled on a pair of her own brown leather riding boots and a hooded cloak of forest green.

As an afterthought, she lifted the lid of the decorative box atop her father’s chest of drawers, gingerly removing a dagger from within.

The narrow blade extended from the base of her hand to just beyond the tip of her middle finger.

It was a simple, practical weapon, the blade a bit tarnished and a strip of brown leather wrapped tightly around the hilt.

It slid nicely into place inside the makeshift sheath of her boot.

As she turned to leave, Nova’s eyes fell upon the bed.

Her chest tightened with the weight of finally bidding her father the farewell she’d been unable to utter in the two years since his death.

Her cheeks heated with the shame of how often she’d wished to escape her life.

To escape him and the gloomy pall of his melancholy, so oppressive she often feared it might consume her as well.

How she, so absorbed with her own self-pity, had dreamt of disappearing and starting fresh somewhere new.

Nova shook her head, as if the motion could erase the terrible memories, and opened the door.

She inhaled sharply, startled to see Callan waiting on the other side, his form nearly filling the entire doorway.

His face was partially in shadow, lit only by the low flame of a candle.

She cleared her throat, unsettled by how silently he moved and the way he observed her.

As someone accustomed to being viewed with disdain, she found his benign interest unnerving.

Nova pushed past him, quickly descending the front stairs and heading for the writing desk in the parlor.

Once she sat, her pen hung poised in the air over a piece of blank parchment for several minutes.

How could she possibly explain to Agnes what had happened?

Where she’d gone? Still, she couldn’t bear the thought of her friend finding an even emptier house and no explanation. No, she had to leave a note.

She hastily penned some nonsense about a last-minute journey to visit relations far from Timberfell.

She asked Agnes and her husband to look after her affairs in her absence, weighing the paper down with a small leather pouch full of coins.

There was no other family, as far as she knew.

The previous winter, Nova had paid a magistrate to draw up documents naming Agnes as the beneficiary of her estate.

If she never returned, her land and property would legally pass to her dear friend.

The knowledge that Agnes and her family would be provided for eased the sting of leaving a bit.

Pressing her lips together, she scanned the familiar room, taking it in for what was likely the last time. The fading floral wallpaper. The small throw pillow on the sofa she had embroidered as a girl.

A faint knock sounded on the doorframe, and she looked up to find Callan waiting there.

“We should be going,” he said quietly, urgency clinging to the edge of his voice.

Nova signed her name to the message and laid the pen flat on the desk. She joined Callan at the parlor door. Biting back sentimental tears, she looked up at him with a resolute nod.

“I’m ready. Let’s go,” she said and blew out the candle.