Chapter 1

The moon is a pale, unblinking eye. They call it Luna, same as her, but tonight the sky feels more like a judge than a namesake. I can hear my own breath, ragged and wet, rattling in my chest as we crouch against the jagged spine of the precipice.

"We made it," I whisper, the words cracking. I reach into my satchel, feeling the unnatural warmth of the Sun-Stone. It hums against my palm, a steady heartbeat of gold in a world of silver and shadow. "Luna, look at the valley. We're above it all."

Luna doesn’t look at the valley. She stands at the very edge of the cliff, her silhouette sharp and black against the glowing disk of the supermoon. Her white hair is silver-threaded in this light, her face a mask of cold porcelain. She is beautiful, and she is terrifying.

"The extraction point is just above that ledge," she says, her voice flat. "One more climb, Kael."

"We aren’t going back," I say, the realization hitting me with more force than the climb ever did. I move closer to her, my boots crunching on the frost-dusted rock. My heart is hammering a rhythm of pure, terrifying hope. "We have the Stone. We don't have to give it to the High Priests. We don't have to live in the tunnels anymore, waiting for the blight to take us. We could go west. To the Green Lands. Together."

I reach out, my fingers trembling as I touch her sleeve. "I have feelings for you, Luna. I’ve had them since we were children scraping for scraps in the dark. I did all of this—the scouting, the stealing, the killing—for you. Not for them."

Luna finally turns to look at me. The moonlight catches the moisture in her eyes, making them look like polished glass. For a second, I think I see a flicker of the girl who used to share her bread with me. The girl who cried when the mountain goats fell from the crags. But then, her jaw sets. The softness vanishes, replaced by a cruel, iron certainty.

"You were always too soft, Kael," she says softly. "That’s why you were a good scout. You felt the world too much. You saw things others missed because you cared."

"Then care with me," I plead. "Let’s leave."

She looks at the single-use extraction relic on her belt—a small, obsidian sphere that can whisk a person to the upper sanctuaries in a heartbeat. Only one charge. Only one life. My stomach drops. I thought we were going to climb the rest of the way. I thought we were a team.

"The tribe needs the Stone," she says. "And the Stone needs a Seeker who won't hesitate. Someone who knows that one life is nothing compared to the species."

"Luna, no—"

I reach for her hand, intending to pull her back, to argue, to beg. But Luna is faster. Her hand moves in a blur of practiced lethality. She doesn't strike my heart. Instead, she draws her ceremonial dagger and drives it through the heavy leather of my scout’s cloak, pinning me to the porous rock of the cliff face with the strength of a girl who has spent her life preparing for sacrifice.

The obsidian relic in her other hand begins to glow with a violet, screaming light.

"Wait!" I scream, struggling against the blade. The leather is thick, the rock is jagged, and I am trapped like a butterfly under a pin. "Luna, please! Don't leave me here!"

"The mist is rising, Kael," she says, her voice devoid of tremor. She steps back, the Sun-Stone clutched to her chest. She looks down at me, and for the first time, I see the true cruelty of her devotion. It isn't hate. It's indifference. "You lived for me. Now, die for them."

The violet light erupts, a silent explosion that swallows her whole. When the spots clear from my eyes, the ledge is empty. She is gone. The Sun-Stone is gone.

I am alone on the Silver Ridge. The supermoon stares down at me, cold and mocking. Below, the toxic mist begins to lap at the base of the precipice, and from the grey depths, I hear the first skittering sounds of the things that hunt in the dark. My feelings brought me here. Her cruelty took her home.

I stop struggling against the dagger and watch the shadows crawl up the rock toward my feet. The moon is so bright it hurts.