Moon snorted, and Raliel echoed it.

  “I am.” Osian held her gaze. “I liked working there. After so many years in the capital, I was… I… disagree with my mother. But she’s my mother.”

  what does that mean, Moon said.

  “It means he cares for her and wants not to upset her.”

  Osian startled. “The demon asked that?”

  “Yes. Is your mother a sorcerer? Who is her great spirit?”

  it’s good, powerful shape-shifting, Moon said. subtle.

  “No. Mother is not. The spirit—my father’s great spirit survived his death. Crown, it is called.”

  “This is sorcery,” Raliel said, nodding at his face.

  Osian winced, sliding his gaze away. Again, Raliel waited him out, and eventually he said, “There were two others. The twin sorcerers, with their great spirits. They helped Mother.”

  Inside her, Moon snarled.

  Raliel stared down at Osian. The implications were enormous: two of the living sorcerers plotting against the empire. She remembered A Dance of Stars exuding his understated power, smiling at her in the palace. He wanted a great demon, the emperor had said. Wanted the Fourth Mountain. Maybe they already had the mountain, if the great spirit there welcomed him and his brother.

  Ice slicked down her spine as she thought of the danger the empire was in if the twin sorcerers realized Moon was no longer in the palace.

  Raliel, Moon whispered.

  “It’s speaking to you?” Osian said.

  Raliel ignored him.

  Osian took a deep breath. “It may use me if need be. Or… want be. I deserve it.”

  “No,” Raliel said at the same time Moon said, yes!

  “If I can be of service,” Osian reiterated. “Let me serve you.”

  “How could I possibly trust you?” She put as much snow and ice into her voice as possible.

  Osian nodded, eyes sliding away with an air of sorrow.

  Raliel stared down at him. At the false streaks of demon-blue and violet. She thought of chasing Moon through the streets of Pilgrim Reception, the laughter it made, so loud and wild. Its delight. She kept thinking about kissing Moon, even in this terrible position, betrayed and angry. She wished she’d had another moment to breathe and think before taking Moon back. Now she couldn’t ask it why it kissed her. Was it only because it knew she found Osian beautiful? Did it think a kiss was a way to learn possession better, or an individual? Did it just think of it and act on impulse? Or had it wanted to, after weeks in her body, of getting to know her inside—did it want to know her from the outside, too?

  She did not touch her lips again. She did, though, want to.

  What she did not want to do was go home. Not yet. Not without learning how to give Moon its choices. They would always be vulnerable if Moon was a prisoner.

  As she thought it, she glared coldly down at Osian. He bravely held her gaze, barely wavering.

  Raliel, Moon crooned inside her. you should sleep. we’ll leave at dawn.

  “You can hold him that long?” she asked. Osian startled, but she ignored him.

  if not I’ll wake you.

  “Promise?”

  promise.

  As the great demon slid into Osian once again, Raliel relaxed. She did not know if she’d sleep well, but she untied the cords around Osian’s hands, and when Moon opened those arms for her, she sank down against the hard, narrow chest and drifted immediately off.

  THREE

  THEY LEFT FIRST THING, to the proprietor’s dismay. She patted Osian’s cheek, and Moon managed a vague smile shape for her, and she curtsied to Raliel. Her eyes nearly disappeared under smiling wrinkles when Raliel slipped her extra money. They ate breakfast purchased at the pilgrim stalls: hot pies with vegetables and potatoes, and for later they got a bag of salted fish and four meat buns. Moon made ridiculous faces at the food, almost slathering in excitement at the flavors until Raliel hissed it needed to at least pretend to be human while they were surrounded.

  It took Raliel a bit to grow used to her backpack again, hooked over her shoulders and pressing her sheath to her spine. But she was stronger than before. She paused at the shrines stacked up at the edge of Pilgrim Reception to light incense and leave the last of her pie crust at the feet of a raccoon statue. The spirit of the little shrine winked at her, its aether-blue eyes sparkling.

  The journey to the sea was awkward and messy. Moon spent hours of every day possessing Osian, and the rest they kept the traitor tied up. Though Raliel had considered acquiring horses, controlling him mounted would be more difficult, and Moon had no experience whatsoever riding. Raliel barely did herself.

  So they walked.

  Moon possessed Osian for the entire first morning, but by the afternoon it needed to recharge its aether, which it could not do through Osian. Not without burning up his aether-channels. It worked through Raliel only because of the palace-amulet linking them, making her a piece of its house. The demon helped Raliel tie Osian’s hands behind his back with fine rope they’d bought in Pilgrim Reception. Then it slipped into Raliel. The cool slithering comforted her, and as they walked she held out her hand to weave her fingers through the air—she’d been practicing catching aether in such simple ways since living on the First Mountain.

  “Wow,” Osian said as he came back to himself. He managed to hold his silence for half a mile before asking where they were headed. Raliel told him what The Scale had told her: “We’re aiming for just beyond a village named Jellyfish Rest, which has a cove with a white sand beach and dark waters, too, because the sand drops away fast into very deep waters. A trench, it’s said. We’ll know the right place because far out in the water are three islands small in circumference but tall, like pillars rising out of the waves. They’re home to nothing but pelicans and seals. At night, just an hour past sunset, in between the pillar islands the water glows.”

  Osian’s eyes grew wide. “What is it?”

  Raliel clenched her jaw, remembering herself. She did not answer, but said, “Afterward we’re taking you to the nearest justiciar to be turned in.”

  “You’ll continue on your own?” he said, as if he had any right to be concerned.

  She turned a cold glance on him. “I have never been on my own since I met my demon.”

  I like it when you say that. yours.

  Osian grimaced. He was quiet for another bit, as they trudged through a patch of muddy road, churned up from recent rain. Though the mountain range loomed in the east, the land to either side of the road was flat, pressed into small furrows by plentiful streams that gave the breeze a pleasant musicality. When they entered woods again, spruce and evergreens turned the light green; their trunks were painted with moss and rainbow lichen. Ferns crowded the narrow path, and meadows of weedy wood sorrel hid little rabbits and root mice.

  Moon said, I want to catch a rabbit and race alongside you.

  They stepped off the road while a small cart pulled by a cow with blessing ribbons tied around its short horns passed them by. The driver did not even glance at Osian’s bound hands. As Raliel nudged Osian back onto the road, he said, “Is it the Moon?”

  Raliel pursed her lips.

  clever, whispered the demon.

  “There were rumors, in the palace,” Osian continued softly. “You had a close connection to the great demon—closer than most heirs.”

  “It is.”

  “I thought… Everyone thought the great demon’s house is the palace itself. It should not be able to leave.”

  Moon answered before Raliel could, driving forcefully into Osian’s body. It shuddered, then turned for Raliel to untie Osian’s hands. That was the end of the conversation.

  * * *

  They avoided crossroads shelters in the evenings, unable to share space, instead camping alone out under the trees. Moon used Osian to gather firewood and help place the canvas shelter and roll out their beds, but then they tied Osian to a tree, sitting up.

  “This is so strange,” Osian murmured, taking in the change in his situation from hours before. The small camp, the dark forest. He tilted his head at the trill of a frog. Then he stared at the fire for a moment, at the small pot of water Raliel had set to boil, and he raised his eyebrows at her, wiggling his shoulders to emphasize his bound state. “Is the heir going to feed me by her own hand?”

  “Moon enjoys eating,” she said lightly.

  Moon purred under her heart.

  Once Raliel had made tea for herself—and she did tip a water flask to Osian’s mouth—she settled down to wait for the buns set on a rock near the fire to heat. Her sword she’d slammed into the earth, where the sigils burned into the steel tugged at aether to store up for the great demon. The forest here was lush; it could spare plenty.

  Osian whistled.

  Raliel startled at first, but the whistle became a gentle melody, a song she recognized as a lullaby. She allowed it.

  That night she slept while Moon listened with her ears for any movement from Osian—but it seemed he slept, too, reclined in discomfort against the tree. In the morning Moon possessed him to relieve the body and splash it clean in the nearby crescent pool of a stream. Then Moon ran ahead, stretching Osian’s legs. It tripped, laughter floating back to Raliel.

  The joy she inadvertently experienced at the sound felt awkward.

  When Moon dashed back to her in Osian’s body, bright with merriment and arms flung out to embrace the whole world, Raliel realized she’d made a strategic error.

  “What?” Moon asked, stepping right into her space. Osian’s demon-kissed eyes glinted with purple-blue shadows, gorgeous, but Moon leaned in, frowning. She could feel its breath on her lips.

  She said, “If we leave him with the justiciar, he can tell everyone you’re with me. He can tell them a lot.”

  “I said we could just kill him.”

  Raliel pushed the demon out of her path and strode on, angry at herself. At Moon. But especially at Osian.

  When they stopped to refill their water at a well shrine, Raliel tied Osian to a tree at the edge of the grove and welcomed Moon back into her. The spark of power startled a little fish spirit that swam over the surface of the well water in an invisible pool of aether. It fell into the real water with a tiny splash.

  Moon laughed inside her. Raliel filled her water and crouched before Osian. She held his gaze, reminding herself of cold and snow, and tipped the water for him. He drank, watching her steadily. A drop of water glistened at the corner of his mouth, and Raliel thought about Moon kissing her with those lips. She jerked the water flask away. Osian blinked.

  Raliel stood so that she looked dramatically down at him. “You will not tell anyone about Moon. You will keep my secrets, Osian Redpop. Or Moon will eat you.”

  The young man’s mouth dropped open, and he blinked again rapidly. Then swallowed. “I will keep your secrets if you keep me with you.”

  what.

  “You have no leverage,” Raliel said.

  “I have your secrets.”

  “Moon would be happy to eat you right now.”

  “Why doesn’t it, then?” Osian’s mouth flattened into a grim line. He raised his chin.

  Raliel clenched her jaw. “I have not allowed it. Yet.”

  “You don’t want to.”

  She held herself still as ice. Stared with her best cold, imperious expression.

  Osian shook his head once. “Raliel.” His voice cracked, no longer challenging, but softer and more intimate. “You don’t want to kill me.”

  “But I will,” she whispered.

  “What can I do to prove I mean you no harm?”

  A single loud laugh barked out of her: raw and impressed.

  Osian did not glance away, but something shivered through him—effort maybe, or fear or determination.

  “You cannot,” Raliel said.

  “I went to the capital knowing my mother would ask me to hurt someone. You, one of your parents, probably. She did not say so with so many words, but I understood what she would want, because of what she had lost. But I was barely fourteen when she sent me to the Warriors of the Last Means. I had no reason not to believe her. To me your father the emperor was a villain. Skybreaker went to the Fifth Mountain to rescue him and was murdered for it, and nobody cared. Nobody in the capital, in the palace. I went, believing in my mother, but also…” Osian closed his eyes. “I knew she was struggling. I knew… her violence wasn’t the only way. I had other mothers, other aunts, and they were good. They are good. It was difficult, Raliel.”

  Raliel flinched at her name. But she hardened her expression. Hardened her whole self.

  “I went to the palace expecting to hate it. To be hurt by indifference or judgment. But do you know what I found?” Osian shook his head. “Acceptance. Your father…” He drew a ragged breath. “Your father may have done terrible things—maybe not! But he… Every day he puts on different rings, different clothing, different hair, and people notice. People see. He is the emperor, but he is also…” Osian bit his lip. Looked away for the first time. “I didn’t have to pretend anymore, in Kirin Dark-Smile’s court.”

  Moon grumbled.

  Raliel frowned. “You did. You lied about your family. Being demon-kissed.”

  Osian’s frown was confused more than anything. “I mean, my—who I am. I…” He struggled against the ropes binding him to the tree, grimacing. “This would be easier free,” he muttered, but then his lips quirked up. “But easier isn’t something you’re interested in for me.”

  “Explain yourself.”

  “Moon didn’t tell you?” the young man murmured.

  Moon hissed. tell what.

  Raliel sank down to her haunches. “Tell me what?”

  “I… Why?” Osian looked down her neck, to her chest, as if he thought the demon lived in her heart. As if he could meet its seven moon-eyes. Raliel reached out and nudged his chin up. He said, “When I was younger, before I came to the capital, my mother, my family, everyone assumed I was a girl.”

  For a moment Raliel didn’t understand. Then she remembered what Moon had actually said: this body is just like yours. not demon-kissed.

  Just like yours.

  “Oh,” she said.

  Osian said firmly, “But I am not. A girl.”

  “Father made you feel… welcome.”

  “I stopped pretending, Heir. I stopped pretending to be anything other than what I am. And in the palace, after a few weeks, nobody cared. They just accepted it. Called me… It was…” Osian closed his eyes again, and this time a tear slipped out of one eye, falling straight and perfect down his cheek. “He could have murdered my father personally, could have been a tyrant, cruel, awful, anything, and to me it wouldn’t have mattered as much as whatever he did to make people care. About who I am, not who I… seem.”

  Raliel felt herself aching and turned away.

  Moon said, this is because he doesn’t have a penis?

  Raliel laughed. Tears prickled her own eyes, and she squished her face up, trembling with slightly hysterical mirth.

  Something behind her shifted, and she realized it must seem to Osian that she laughed at him. She clenched tight, stopping the laughter. Then she said, “Moon thinks humans are ridiculous.”

  Osian laughed a little, too. Darker than anything she’d heard from him. “We are.”

  I am not a man just because I possess someone with a penis, the demon said.

  “And I’m a dragon,” Raliel whispered. She turned back to Osian. “So? You still tried to kill me two nights ago.”

  “I had to. I have…” He paused, drew a very deep breath. “Will you unbind me for this? I swear I will not run, nor attack or attempt to do anything you do not command.”

  Raliel studied him. “Moon?”

  Osian blinked but otherwise did not react.

  Moon said, I suppose it is safe enough.

  She strode behind the tree and took a moment to untie the knot.

  Osian wisely did not move until she returned to face him. He shifted, leaning forward, but did not stand. Instead, he knelt before her. Tilted his face up. “Heir to the Moon, I have been in communication with my mother, occasionally, and she knew of this journey. When you left me, I told her where I was going, and she sent a message to me through a shrine in Pilgrim Reception. It said, ‘What are you waiting for?’ Nothing more or less.” He lowered his head but clasped his hands before him. “I was waiting for nothing. I was afraid and uncertain. But it had been trained into me. This was my purpose. How could I deny my mother?”

  “Now you do,” Raliel said. “Now you wish to go with me, to remain with me. That denies your mother.”

  “I failed her.”

  “We stopped you.”

  “No—I hesitated.” Osian looked up at her. “It could have been fast enough your demon could not have stopped it. But I hesitated because I did not want to hurt you, even with her voice in my head. I couldn’t try again.”

  it is mutual blackmail, Moon said. he has a secret of ours, but if we choose we can have him imprisoned or executed, or I can drink up his delicious life.

  Raliel nodded. She felt sick. Knotted and clammy. “You cannot hurt me, even if you want to, or try. Moon is with me, and it will annihilate you.”

  “I understand,” Osian said.

  “I do not trust you, but we will try to continue on. After the sea, we head north.”

  I want to meet his mother.

  “I want to meet your mother,” Raliel repeated, because she agreed.

  Osian’s face jerked up. “What? No—she wants you dead.”

  Raliel smiled and felt the great demon beneath her skin, making her smile worse. They said nothing.

  She picked up her things and walked away. Osian scrambled to follow.

  He trailed her, remaining just behind, but eventually he started to sing a gentle work song, good for steady walking and harmonies. Raliel did not sing back, but Moon did, from the ice nest below her heart.

  FOUR

  MOON DIDN’T KNOW MUCH about love, but it did understand possession, and it felt possessive about two things: Raliel Dark-Smile and the entire ocean. mine mine mine, it felt, and struggled not to say.