Moonburner (Moonburner Cycle Book 1) Read online

  Moonburner

  Copyright © 2016 by Claire Luana

  Published by Live Edge Publishing

  ISBN-13: 978–0–9977018–1–4 (Paperback)

  ISBN-13: 978–0–9977018–2–1 (Ebook)

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the author.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design: Okay Creations

  Interior Formatting: Integrity Formatting

  Her world would destroy her for what she is. Not if she breaks it first...

  Kai is a Moonburner—a female sorceress reviled by her people and normally killed at birth. Except Kai's parents saved her by disguising her as boy—a ruse they've kept up for almost seventeen years. But when her village is attacked, Kai’s secret is revealed and she’s sentenced to death.

  Thankfully, the gods aren’t done with Kai. Despite the odds stacked against her, she escapes her fate, undertaking a harrowing journey to a land where Moonburners are revered and trained as warriors.

  But her new home has dangers of its own—the ancient war against the male Sunburners has led the Moonburners down a dark path that could destroy all magic. And Kai, armed only with a secret from her past and a handsome but dangerous ally, may be the only one who can prevent the destruction of her people...

  Prologue

  Book One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Interlude

  Book Two

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Interlude

  Book Three

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Interlude

  Book Four

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  From the Author

  Sneak Peek: Sunburner

  About the Author

  To Mike,

  for constantly reminding me that life is supposed to be fun.

  The thick woods muffled Hanae’s anguished screams. Raiden had chosen this location carefully. They did not want anyone near when their child was born.

  “It will be a daughter,” Hanae had said. “And they will try to kill her.”

  Her mother’s intuition came to pass. Hanae’s labors were joined by the first wail of a new life—a perfect glistening daughter.

  Raiden bathed their tiny child with a damp cloth and placed her in her mother’s arms.

  Just like delivering a calf, he thought, and then chided himself for having such a thought about his wife.

  He bustled around the cabin, if it could be called that—only four ramshackle walls guarding a square dirt floor. He cleaned up the worst from the delivery and sat on an old wooden stool by his wife’s side.

  Hanae spoke softly to their daughter, entranced and oblivious to the danger that faced them.

  “We need to perform the Gleaming ceremony,” Raiden said, smoothing his wife’s sticky hair back from her soft brow. “We need to know.”

  Hanae’s arms tightened around the child. She didn’t look at him. He could see that in that moment, she only had eyes for her daughter.

  “She’s weak—she’s barely taken her first breath. Let’s wait a little longer. Until she has a chance to gain her strength.”

  “My love. No daughter of yours could ever be weak. We talked of this. It must be now. We must know. Everything depends on what it shows.”

  Her eyes flashed and she jerked away from his extended hand. “No.” Her voice was steel. “I won’t let you hurt her.”

  “Hanae. We must. So they do not.” He stroked her cheek softly. “We swore . . . that we would not let them do to her what they did to Saeko.” Why they had named their first daughter, he didn’t know. She had only lived two days.

  Hanae’s shoulders slumped, and the iron grip of her arms loosened. She turned back and offered him the bundle.

  “You are right,” she said, as a tear slid from the corner of her eye to her ear, leaving a trail through the dried salt of her sweat. “But I can’t watch.”

  She turned away from him, pulling her knees to her chest in a ball.

  He stood before the small basin of water, resting on a rickety table on the other side of the cabin and unwrapped their daughter. She was so beautiful. Even red and wrinkled, he could tell she had her mother’s fine hands, delicate but strong. She had his square jawbone. He wondered whether she would be as stubborn as he was in his youth. But he was delaying.

  He plunged her into the water and held her there, his own heart hammering in his chest like a wild beast desperate to be set free. He began counting. Ten. She flailed under the water, her tiny limbs no match for his strong calloused hands. Thirty. At sixty, he could let her up. And try to save her. Fifty. Relief and hope began to well in him.

  And then a bright, white light exploded from his daughter. He stumbled back, throwing an arm over his eyes. She illuminated the cabin, shining silver light into cobwebbed corners and dusty crevices.

  After a few seconds, the light died, and his daughter was herself again. Tiny, pink, floating on top of the water peacefully. He and Hanae locked eyes. She had turned over and was half sitting up on her cot. The look of helpless horror on her face was mirrored on his own.

  “I knew she would be,” Hanae said softly. “A moonburner. And a strong one.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We hide her. We keep her alive.”

  The breeze blew across Kai’s face, cooling a rivulet of sweat that dribbled down the side of her neck. She closed her eyes, opening her senses to the heat of the sun, the fresh smell of grass, horse and leather, and Jaimo’s gentle wuffing.

  “Look sharp, Kai.” Her father, Raiden, trotted by, sending her a pointed look. She shook herself from her reverie. Sitting and soaking up the sun upon your face wasn’t very manly. She blew a stray lock of her shaggy hair from her forehead in a silent rebellion. That habit wasn’t particularly manly either, as her parents constantly reminded her.

  She nudged Jaimo’s chestnut flanks and trotted to join her father. He sat astride their other horse, Archer, a feisty dun with a white marking like an arrow on his forehead. Her father sat with the grace of a man who had spent his life on horseback. He was muscular and strong, the skin on his face, neck and arms weathered from years outside. Laugh lines paralleled his wide mouth and strong square jaw, and he shared his easy smile often, revealing white teeth. Only the tightness around his eyes betrayed the stresses he had faced in the last few years. None of her family had been unaffected.

  “They are look
ing good this year,” she said, surveying the cattle herd. There were a number of calves that looked healthy and strong.

  “Yes, Taiyo has blessed us,” Raiden said.

  Kai snorted. “Right. It was all Taiyo. None of the hard work, careful selection, or late hours we spent with the herd played any part in it.”

  “Do not speak such blasphemous things.” Raiden lowered his voice. “At least where others can hear you. You know better.”

  “Somehow,” Kai said under her breath, “I don’t think Taiyo has much interest in blessing me.”

  Taiyo, the Sun God, was worshipped by all of Kita. His golden-haired sun-burners, who drew magic from the rays of the sun, were treated like royalty. Never mind that it was his war with Tsuki, the Moon Goddess, that had plagued their lands for hundreds of years. Never mind that it was his damn war that had forced her to masquerade as a boy for the last seventeen years.

  Kai and Raiden joined the rest of the men: her father’s old friend Aito and Tomm and Ren, brothers from their village. Handsome, perfect, Ren. They had reached a watering hole surrounded by tall, delicately-leafed ironwood trees. It was an oasis of color in the otherwise dull tan landscape—leagues after leagues of banu grass withering in the summer heat. The cattle were already heading to the edge of the water and reaching down to drink.

  “We’ll break here for lunch,” Raiden announced. “I’m going to take a closer look at some of the calves. Save me something to eat, you animals.”

  Aito pulled lunch out of his saddlebags, spreading dried meat, fruit and cheese over a flat stump under the shade of one of the ironwood trees. He was the keeper of the food, as Tomm and Ren—renowned bottomless pits—couldn’t be trusted.

  The brothers were nearly identical—tall and thin but strong, like two acacia trees that refused to bow to the wind. Tomm was the older and more charismatic, with an easy laugh and a quirk in his smile. Ren was more reserved, as if he preferred to observe life around him before expressing his conclusions.

  Kai found him observing her often, which was disconcerting, as it usually happened when she herself was trying to sneak a sideways glance at him. She didn’t think he suspected her secret, but he must know something about her was not as it seemed.

  Kai sprawled out on the ground next to the watering hole in typical masculine fashion, eating her lunch with gusto. She constantly felt that she was playing a caricature of a man, that her exaggerated gestures and mannerisms were painfully transparent. Apparently they weren’t, as the villagers who lived around them hadn’t discovered her yet. If the tables were turned, she supposed she wouldn’t see reason to think twice about herself. She was short in stature for a man, but her lean figure, made strong by years of helping her father, was not unusual in this rural area. Food was not always plentiful during childhood. Her face was square like her father’s, her skin tanned by the sun, a field of freckles across her small nose and cheeks. Her ears stuck out like her mother’s, though her mother could cover hers with long hair. Kai’s cheekbones were a bit high for a man’s, and her eyes were hazel and almond-shaped, but those feminine features were balanced by a nondescript mouth, unruly eyebrows, and a close-cropped, unfashionable haircut. As a woman, Kai would never be more than plain, perhaps pretty if she really put some effort into it. She thanked Tsuki every day for her unremarkable features.

  Kai only had to blend into the background for six more months and she could be free. Maybe. If she made it across the border and wasn’t killed for a spy. It was the best she could hope for, a shadow of a future that could easily elude her. But as quickly as her emotions took a turn towards self-pity, she righted them. She knew she was lucky. By all rights, she shouldn’t be alive at all.

  Kai laid back into the dry grass and her mind drifted, imagining what it would be like if she and Ren were at the watering hole alone, as a man and a woman. Would he hold her hand or kiss her? Look at her softly?

  A commotion by the water jarred her from her daydream, and she sat up.

  “Kai! Come on, we’re going swimming!” shouted Tomm, already stripped down to his underclothes.

  Her cheeks grew hot as she watched Ren take his shirt off. His lean, tanned muscles shone with sweat. She tore her eyes away, not wanting to be caught staring. “No thanks,” she called. “My father might come back any moment.”

  The brothers seemed to accept her excuse and dove into the water. She watched them splashing each other, floating, and doing lazy backstrokes across the glistening surface of the water. Just another slice of everyday life that she had to watch from a distance.

  Kai closed her eyes and laid back on the grass again, listening to the light sounds of Aito’s gentle snoring punctuated by the brothers’ laughter. That man could sleep through anything. It grew quiet. A shadow passed over her, and she felt a drop of water on her forehead. She blinked it away and opened her eyes to Tomm and Ren standing over her, mischievous grins on their faces.

  “Come on!” Tomm cried. The brothers heaved her up, racing her down to the water to throw her in. She panicked, beating Tomm across the shoulders uselessly. She couldn’t end up in the water, it would expose everything.

  Kai’s blind panic gave way to a spark of reason, and she acted quickly. She punched Tomm in the windpipe with a quick blow of her hand, trying to strike true despite the angle they were holding her. Luckily, it was enough, and Tomm doubled over in surprise, dropping her left side. Unsupported, she tumbled out of Ren’s hands as well. She sprang to her feet, and with a mental apology, kneed Ren in the stomach. She raced up the bank, leaving the two of them spluttering and coughing.

  “Wow, Kai,” Tomm said when he finally caught his breath. “Can’t you take a joke? What are you, a manga cat?” he asked, referring to the big felines that roamed the Tottori Desert that bordered their land.

  “Looks like you two need to spend some more time in sparring lessons with Master Opu,” she said, trying to turn the situation into a joke. They couldn’t realize how deadly serious it was.

  “What’s this?” Her father chose that moment to reappear over the hillside. Her shoulders sagged as the tension left them. Playtime was over. She was safe. “You boys should know better than to try to take on my son, even two to one.” He clapped her across the shoulders, giving her an inquisitive look. She nodded wearily.

  Ren laughed. “He’s right Tomm, we better adjust our plan of attack next time. We underestimated Kai.”

  “I bet you won’t make that mistake again,” she said, grinning.

  The rest of the ride home was uneventful. Kai loved the peace of the open countryside, disturbed only by the soft creak and clank of tack and leather, the soft hoofbeats of the horses and gentle moos of the cattle. The land they rode through was yet untouched by the war. When she was out here, she could almost imagine it didn’t exist.

  As they neared their village, the reminders were obvious. Even the smallest towns were fortified, wooden and earthen walls and gates built to protect from an attack by Miinan soldiers and moonburners. Though if the moonburners really came, that wood and earth would do nothing to stop them. A few Kitan soldiers were stationed in each village, providing defense as well as intelligence back to King Ozora.

  Her family’s house was one of the few built outside the town wall. Officially, her parents had built the house beyond the walls in order to stay close to their livestock. Unofficially, they had wanted to be as far away from their neighbors as possible.

  They rounded the cattle into the pens, and Aito, Tomm and Ren waved goodbye. She and her father watered the cattle and then saw to their horses, rubbing them down and filling their stalls with fresh hay and oats.

  “Do Tomm and Ren suspect anything?” Raiden asked as they walked from the barn towards their small stout house.

  “No. I handled it. They just think I’m strange.” They and everyone else in the village, she thought. That was the price of keeping the entire town at arm’s length.

  “Be careful, my little fox. We are so close.” It was
her father’s nickname for her when she was little, given to help a child understand and embrace the little-taught virtues of slyness and deception. They had made it a game for her. It didn’t feel like a game anymore.

  “I know we’re close,” Kai said. “But some days I don’t think I can do this another six months.”

  “You are strong. You will. You must.”

  And there it was. She had never had a choice but to carry on.

  They walked into the small wooden house and were greeted by the welcoming smell of a spicy stew on the fire. But when Kai saw who filled the room, she stopped in her tracks.

  Raiden recovered more quickly.

  “Prefect Youkai.” He gave a respectful bow. “To what do we owe this honor?”

  Prefect Youkai stood up from the kitchen table, his bloated stomach jostling the teacups set on top.

  “I had a minor ailment and I was consulting your wife regarding a remedy. Her herbs and poultices always do the trick.”

  “Of course,” Raiden said, eyeing his wife who was also standing at the table. “We are happy to assist.”

  Kita was divided into shoens, which were each ruled by a prefect appointed by King Ozora. Youkai, the prefect of their shoen, was a man of appetites. If he cared about the residents of Ushai at all, it was only for the tax revenue they represented. Today his massive girth was swathed in a colorful silk tunic embroidered with flowers, wrapped with a straining obi sash. His tiny dark eyes, set above a pencil-thin goatee drawn onto his quivering pale jowls, flicked to Kai’s mother too frequently for comfort.

  “Hanae,” Youkai said, gathering the stoppered bottle she had given him. “I will try this. Thank you as always for your help.” He nodded to Raiden and lumbered towards the door.

  He paused at the doorway and turned.

  “Raiden, be alert. I have received word of a raid on the next shoen by Queen Airi’s moonburners. I think an attack here is unlikely, but we must be vigilant.”

  As soon as Prefect Youkai was gone, Kai’s mother Hanae shuddered slightly and blew a few stray strands of hair off her forehead. Then she turned her attention to Raiden and swept him into an embrace.