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To Michelle Grajkowski,

I'thou grateful yous're my amanuensis

and honored that you lot're my friend.

You fought for this book.

Give thanks y'all, Warrior Princess.

Prologue

In some other time on some other world called Aerthlan, there are five kingdoms. Four of the kingdoms extend across a continent. There, the four kings thirst for state of war.

The fifth kingdom lies in the Great Western Ocean. It consists of two islands called Moon and Mist. In that location, the fishermen and traders rely on the two moons in the dark sky to guide their boats safely home. Over time, the islanders began to pray to the twin moons, Luna and Lessa, and now they believe their goddesses are watching over them. The islanders and their queen live on the larger island of Moon. Only ane person lives on the pocket-size Isle of Mist—the Seer.

The kings on the mainland refuse to bow to female gods. They worship the dominicus, a male person god. They call their god the Calorie-free and their people the Enlightened. Anyone who denies their god is put to death.

Twice a year, the two moons align in the dark sky. A child built-in on the night the moons embrace will be gifted with some sort of supernatural power. These children are called the Embraced. They are protected on the islands, but in danger on the mainland. The kings will non let anyone to possess a power that they do not, then they dispatch assassins to kill the newly born Embraced. Parents who wish to save their child either lie about when the child was built-in or send the child secretly to the Isle of Moon where he or she will be safety.

And and then our story begins on the Isle of Moon at the Convent of the Ii Moons, where five young girls take been raised. They know nothing of their families. Nothing of their past. Nix of the destiny in store for them.

They only know they are Embraced.

Affiliate Ane

Red every bit blood. Blackness as death.

The thoughts jumped into Luciana'south mind the instant she spotted the red and blackness colored pebbles in her mitt. Even the 3rd pebble, marked with the number two, of a sudden struck her as ominous. Two deaths? She apace closed her fist effectually the Telling Stones to keep her companions from seeing them.

"Come now." Gwennore, who saturday to her right, gave her a sympathetic smiling. "It cannot be that bad."

"For sure," Brigitta agreed. "'Tis nix just a game. Recall final week when I picked the stone with the number seven, and ye said I would have vii suitors vying for my hand? 'Twas nonsense, but I nonetheless enjoyed the sound of it."

"Aye." Sorcha smirked. "Ye liked it better than the prophecy I gave yerself."

"That I would sprout 7 whiskers on my chin?" Brigitta shuddered. "Thank the goddesses that hasn't happened."

"Neither accept the vii suitors." Sorcha's eyes glinted with humor when Brigitta huffed and swatted at her arm.

"Information technology doesn't matter," Maeve chimed in. "Why would any of us wish for 7 suitors when we have one some other?"

Gwennore patted Maeve on the human knee. "Ye're simply fifteen. In a year or and then, ye could exist changing yer mind."

"And there ye go again, treating me like a baby. I'll be sixteen in a few weeks, and then I'll be merely i yr younger than yerself." She lifted her chin. "Also, I wouldn't care if I had a hundred suitors. I'thousand staying here at the convent with all of you till the terminate of my days."

"Yep," Sorcha muttered. "And we may reach the end of our days afore Luciana shows us the stones she has picked."

Luciana sighed, even so reluctant to open her hand. Out of the forty pebbles contained in the wooden bowl, only one had been painted black. And only ii red. She and her friends had painted almost of the pebbles with pretty rainbow colors or uncomplicated numbers. Since the pebbles were supposed to tell their futurity, they'd been clever plenty to stack the odds in their own favor.

"Why the worried face?" Gwennore asked. "Have whatsoever of our predictions e'er come up true?"

"Yers have," Maeve reminded her. "One fourth dimension I picked the pink, yellow, and number iii stones. So ye said I would detect three pink seashells on a sunny twenty-four hour period, and information technology happened the very next morning."

Gwennore snorted. "Because ye went to the embankment to look for them. 'Tis the same every bit I have always said. We make our ain futures."

"That's not always truthful." Sorcha frowned. "Did any of u.s. ask to be left here as babes, rejected past our families?"

Luciana winced at the harsh reminder. Like the other girls, she'd been an infant when she'd been dropped off at the convent. According to Female parent Ginessa, they were all orphans. But did that hateful they had no family at all?

Gwennore's white-blond hair, lavender-blue eyes, and slightly pointed ears could only mean that she possessed some elfin blood. Did she have family in the elfin kingdom of Woodwyn? Sorcha had fiery cherry hair like the violent warriors from Norveshka. And Brigitta looked like to the people from the coastal kingdom of Tourin.

Luciana suspected they had been abased considering they were Embraced. But whether they had family or not, they still had each other, so at a immature age they had declared themselves sisters. They were their ain family unit, and the one prophecy they had all agreed upon was that the Convent of the Two Moons would ever exist their home.

Each 24-hour interval, there was an hour earlier dinner that the nuns had prepare aside for quiet meditation. Luciana and her sisters had tried when they were young, only whenever they had formed a circle on the floor in their room, attempting to meditate, invariably someone made a funny face and the others started giggling. It didn't take long before pillows started flight and the air was thick with goose feathers.

Luciana, the oldest and eight years former at the time, was told that she and her sisters should invent a repose game that would go out their room neat and tidy and not disturb the nuns, who were meditating nearby.

Since the convent was located on the Island of Moon, at that place were several beaches close by. Early on one morn, the girls had accompanied a few nuns to the nearest embankment, where they had dug for clams. And while they had worked, the nuns had talked about the latest prophecy from the Seer. He had predicted more wars on the mainland. More death and destruction.

Non surprising, Luciana had idea. In her eight years of life, she had never heard of peace on the mainland. Fortunately, the four mainland kingdoms were and then busy fighting one another that the isle kingdom was more often than not forgotten. And the two islands, Moon and Mist, never fought each other. What would exist the signal? There was only one inhabitant on the small Isle of Mist—the Seer.

And that was when the idea had struck. Why not invent a game where she and her younger sisters could pretend to be Seers? After collecting twoscore pebbles, they had busy them with colors or numbers. Since most of the nuns spent their days in the workroom translating and illustrating books, in that location was always a supply of colored paints on manus.

The nuns had given them an old wooden bowl from the thou

itchen. Subsequently the pigment had dried, the girls deposited the pebbles in the bowl, then draped a cloth on summit. To play the game, each daughter would accomplish into the bowl, take hold of a few Telling Stones, so her future would be told.

And now, eleven years subsequently, Luciana clutched three of the stones in her hand as a chill shuddered down her spine. Why would three harmless pebbles unnerve her? Prophecy was not her souvenir. Or curse, as she was more apt to put it.

"Hurry," Sorcha told her. "I want to have my turn afore the dinner bell rings."

"O Great Seer"—Brigitta repeated the line they spoke before each prediction—"reveal to us the secrets of the Telling Stones."

Luciana opened her hand to testify the pebbles. Two of her companions frowned. The other two winced.

Similar the others, Maeve quickly adopted a hopeful expression. "Possibly the black stone refers to yer lovely black pilus."

"I think 'tis sadly obvious what the stones foretell," Luciana began, her words causing anticipation to steal over her sisters' faces. She affected a vivid, cheery smiling. "The number two means that in ii weeks I will encounter a tall and handsome stranger."

"Of grade!" Brigitta clapped her easily.

Luciana pointed at the blood-red stone. Not blood. "He will have crimson…"

"Freckles?" Sorcha wrinkled her olfactory organ. "Similar me self?"

"Pilus. Cute hair like yers." Luciana motioned to the black rock. "And he will have a black…" Middle? She shoved that thought aside as she gear up the stones on the flooring. "A black horse."

"Excellent!" Gwennore nodded. "Whose turn is next?"

"Mine." Sorcha slipped her hand under the fabric. The pebbles clattered confronting one another every bit she rummaged through them. When she withdrew her mitt, fisted tightly around some stones, the air current picked upwardly outside.

Maeve airtight her eyes briefly. "A tempest is brewing over the Great Western Ocean and headed our way."

This was one prediction that Luciana felt certain would come to laissez passer, for Maeve was somehow connected to the sea. "We should close the shutters."

"But first ye must tell my fortune," Sorcha insisted, opening her hand to reveal 4 pebbles. "O Bully Seer, reveal to us the secrets of the Telling Stones."

Yellow, green, i, and three.

"In ane year ye volition encounter a tall and handsome stranger," Luciana began.

Maeve groaned. "Why do ye always have us meet alpine and handsome strangers?"

"Would ye prefer a short and ugly one?" Gwennore asked.

Maeve huffed. "Why must we meet a man at all?"

"Because I'm non keen on marrying a squirrel," Sorcha muttered.

"We're not marrying," Maeve argued. "We're staying hither forever equally sisters."

"I know," Luciana admitted. "I just like to pretend we'll feel exciting adventures and truthful love."

Sorcha lifted her paw with the four pebbles. "And?"

"He'll have blond hair and greenish eyes," Luciana said.

Sorcha nodded. "Very good. And the number iii?"

Luciana bit her lip, considering. "He'll accept three…"

"Teeth," Gwennore said, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

Sorcha glared at her, while everyone else grinned.

"He'll give yerself a necklace of three precious stones to demonstrate his love and devotion," Luciana finished.

Sorcha smiled. "Ye always give the best predict—" A blast of wind shot through the windows, whisking the cloth off the bowl of Telling Stones. Drops of rain blew in and splattered onto the wooden flooring.

"I'll get the shutters." Luciana scrambled to her feet.

"I'll assist ye." Sorcha dropped her pebbles back into the basin equally she stood.

When Luciana unlatched the door, a gust of wind whisked information technology open up. Sorcha helped her pull it close as they stepped onto the covered portico that bordered the eastern side of the courtyard. The wind whipped at their braided pilus and tangled their long skirts about their legs.

Luciana stepped into the courtyard to peer up at the thick gray clouds. Even though there should be a few hours of sunlight left, the sky was rapidly growing dark. A fat drop of rain plopped onto her cheek, then suddenly the clouds released a deluge.

"Hurry!" She jumped dorsum beneath the portico while Sorcha ran to the window on the right side of the door.

A clap of thunder sounded in the distance as Luciana rushed to the window on the left. She caught a glimpse of her sisters inside, lighting candles and drying the floor.

The bell outside the convent clanged wildly, distracting her from her task. At start she assumed the noise was caused by the wind, but so a male vocalism shouted beyond the thick wooden gate. A visitor, now? Perhaps he was a poor traveler who sought refuge from the tempest.

2 nuns scurried across the rock-paved courtyard to come across the stranger, their cream-colored woolen gowns soaked by the time they reached the grated lookout hole in the gate. Luciana couldn't make out their words over the howling of the wind. When the nuns opened the gate, a homo tromped into the large courtyard, leading a horse.

He was a tall man with a large floppy chapeau pulled depression against the storm. With the dim calorie-free and heavy rain, Luciana couldn't see him well, but he moved like an older homo who carried a heavy weight on his wide shoulders. While he tethered his horse to the nearby post, a covered wagon slowly rolled through the gate.

After closing the gate, the two nuns rushed down the portico on the western side of the courtyard till they reached the final door that led to the part of Mother Ginessa, the leader of the convent.

This was strange, Luciana idea. The merchants who came to collect finished books usually did so in the morn, and they would never come up in the pelting, when the h2o could destroy the beautifully copied and illustrated books that the sisters were famous for. Their books, transcribed in all four mainland languages, were considered treasures throughout the known world, and the coin earned kept the convent well maintained and the nuns well fed and clothed.

Ii men descended from the driver'south bench of the covered carriage, and the homo with the floppy hat talked to them every bit they circled to the dorsum of the wagon.

A flurry of movement brought Luciana's attending dorsum to Female parent Ginessa'due south room. The 2 nuns had exited and were dashing s, plainly headed for the kitchens that lay beyond the chapel and graveyard.

Mother Ginessa left her room and hurried down the portico to where the homo was waiting. He removed his hat in greeting, and to Luciana's surprise, Mother Ginessa curtsied. Not a merchant and then. The human being must be a noble.

A flash of lightning lit up the sky, allowing Luciana a better look at the man. He was dressed all in black.

Black. A clap of thunder broke overhead, and the wind blasted more pelting at Luciana. She turned her back. Think nothing of information technology, she admonished herself. Many men wore blackness.

She closed the shutters, and then held them still with one hand while she turned the sharp claw into identify to latch them close. It was unremarkably an piece of cake task, but the air current was rattling the shutters so badly that she rammed the claw down with too much force and pricked her thumb.

With a wince, she stepped dorsum and looked at the blossoming dot of claret. Reddish.

A sudden noise made her spin effectually. Her center stilled as she realized what the two men had merely removed from the carriage and dropped onto the courtyard. A black coffin.

Red as blood. Black as decease.

"Come up on!" Sorcha unlatched the door to their room, and the current of air whipped it open with enough force that it banged against the inner wall.

Luciana followed her within, and together they pushed the door shut and shot the commodities. The room was darker at present with the shutters closed. The light of four candlesticks cast flickering shadows on the whitewashed walls.

"Whew." Sorcha brushed clammy red curls dorsum from her face up, and Brigitta handed her and Luciana towels.

Luciana dried her face up, then winced at the splotch

es of claret she'd left on the foam-colored linen.

"Ye're injured?" Gwennore asked.

"Only a prick of my thumb." Luciana pressed the towel against the small puncture.

A crack of lightning sounded outside, followed quickly by the rumble of thunder.

Sorcha patted her hair dry. "I wonder if the visitors will be joining us for dinner."

The three girls who had remained inside stared at her.

"Visitors?" Gwennore asked. "Who are they?"

Sorcha shrugged. "I haven't seen them afore. There was a man in charge and two servants."

Maeve frowned. "He'd better not be one of yer tall and handsome strangers."

"He's a nobleman," Luciana said. "Mother Ginessa curtsied to himself."

The other girls gaped. Usually, just book merchants came to the convent.

"The servants were driving a covered wagon," Sorcha continued, then dropped her voice to a dramatic whisper. "And ye won't believe what was inside. A coffin!"

The other girls gasped just as a booming cleft of thunder sounded overhead.

"May Luna and Lessa protect us." Brigitta lifted her hands to her chest, thumbs pressed against forefingers to form 2 circles, a gesture of supplication to the twin moon goddesses.

As the other girls made the sign of the moons, Luciana peered at her injured thumb. The bleeding had stopped, thank the goddesses, but her nerves were condign increasingly tense. The arrival of a coffin did not bode well. It had been three years since one of the nuns had died. Iii years of peace from her accursed gift.

A pounding on the door made them all spin around.

"Open the door, please," the voice outside called. "This is Sister Fallyn."

Sorcha pulled dorsum the bolt, so unlatched the door, carefully jumping dorsum as the wind slammed the door open.

Sister Fallyn'due south gown of cream-colored wool was soaked and smelled similar a wet sheep.

"Please come in from the rain," Brigitta urged her.

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