Dark Moon, Shallow Sea, page 1
Subscribe to our newsletter for title recommendations, giveaways, and discounts reserved only for subscribers.
Join here.
PRAISE FOR DARK MOON, SHALLOW SEA
“Breathtaking action, yearning so powerful that it hurts, and that David R. Slayton signature wit combine like a symphony to lift Dark Moon, Shallow Sea from the extraordinary to the divine.”
BARBARA ANN WRIGHT, LAMBDA AWARD–NOMINATED AND RAINBOW AWARD–WINNING AUTHOR
“David R. Slayton conquers his kingdom in the epic fantasy world with Dark Moon, Shallow Sea! Inventive, character-driven, and intensely exciting!”
JONATHAN MABERRY, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF CAVE 13 AND LONG PAST MIDNIGHT
“Dark Moon, Shallow Sea is as heartfelt as it is thrilling. A fantasy adventure rooted in compassion, the world building and lore are exquisite, and the characters are so real it hurts in the best way . . . I have waited my whole life for an epic fantasy like this.”
SHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSON, AUTHOR OF BEFORE WE DISAPPEAR
“Immersive world-building, compelling characters, and a twisty plot. An excellent story!”
GAIL Z. MARTIN, AUTHOR OF THE CHRONICLES OF THE NECROMANCER
“A thrilling, atmospheric fantasy . . . A twisty read, with surprises aplenty, and a lead who will pick your pockets and your heart. I look forward to more adventures with Raef and his friends.”
K. A. DOORE, AUTHOR OF THE CHRONICLES OF GHADID TRILOGY
“David Slayton delivers a beautifully realized world, his signature relatable characters, and some great twists. Dark Moon, Shallow Sea is rife with skullduggery and magic, romance and heartbreak. Highly recommended!”
LYNN FLEWELLING, AUTHOR OF THE NIGHTRUNNER SERIES AND THE TAMÍR TRIAD
Books By David R. Slayton
the gods of night and day series
Dark Moon, Shallow Sea
the adam binder novels
White Trash Warlock
Trailer Park Trickster
Deadbeat Druid
Dark Moon, Shallow Sea
DAVID R. SLAYTON
Copyright © 2023 by David R. Slayton
E-book published in 2023 by Blackstone Publishing
Cover design by Sarah Riedlinger
Map drawn by Jake Shandy
All rights reserved. This book or any portion
thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner
whatsoever without the express written permission
of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations
in a book review.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Trade e-book ISBN 979-8-200-97740-6
Library e-book ISBN 979-8-200-97739-0
Fiction / Fantasy / General
Blackstone Publishing
31 Mistletoe Rd.
Ashland, OR 97520
www.BlackstonePublishing.com
To Alfred Utton,
who kept the faith even when I lost the light.
Contents
I. The City in the Grief
1. Moon
2. Moon
3. Sun
4. Moon
5. Sun
6. Sun
7. Moon
8. Sun
9. Moon
10. Moon
11. Sun
12. Moon
13. Moon
14. Sun
15. Moon
16. Moon
17. Sun
18. Moon
19. Moon
II. Dark Moon, Shallow Sea
20. Sun
21. Moon
22. Moon
23. Moon
III. The Isle of the Dead
24. Sun
25. Moon
26. Moon
27. Moon
28. Sun
29. Moon
30. Moon
31. Sun
IV. A Light in the East
32. Moon
33. Sun
34. Moon
35. Moon
36. Moon
37. Sun
38. Moon
39. Sun
40. Moon
41. Moon
42. Moon
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Part One
The City in the Grief
Only mortals die forever.
—Graffiti carved on the Garden wall
Chapter 1
Moon
The smell of wilting flowers and spent candles almost masked the odor of decay. Raef pressed against a statue and fought to keep from trembling as the knight with the flaming sword paced nearer.
He didn’t have much time. The sun would soon set, and the temple doors would close. If they did not find him, he’d be trapped. If they found him, they’d burn him alive.
Golden-haired and handsome, the knight approached Raef’s hiding place, waving his sword like a torch. It should be easy. One jab to the neck would do it.
Raef drew his knife.
The Knights of Hyperion, god of the sun, had murdered Phoebe, goddess of the moon. With her had gone the tides and the path to the Underworld.
They’d razed her temples and burned her priests, the only family he’d ever known.
A decade later, the screams of the orphans still echoed in his dreams, and he shook at the sight of fire. No matter how tonight went, he’d need a long pull from the rum bottle if he wanted any sleep.
Raef gripped the blade and inhaled the crypt’s moldy air.
It wouldn’t be murder, not really.
He tensed, ready to spring, and . . . lowered his hand.
The knight deserved it. They all did, but Raef wasn’t like them. They were his enemies, and yet . . . he couldn’t do it.
Sinking back into the shadows, he waited for the chance to slip away.
New flames lit the direction of his escape. Another sword, another knight, approached the tomb where the handsome one stood guard.
“It’s almost sunset,” the second knight said. Older, he wore a beard of steely wool. “Get to your penance, Seth.”
“I can guard with you,” Seth protested.
He looked about Raef’s age but sounded eager and youthful. Probably because he hadn’t spent the last decade on the streets.
The veteran sneered.
“I don’t need the likes of you. See that the dark doesn’t seduce you.”
“Yes, Zale.”
Seth marched away, shoulders shrunk with disappointment.
Despite himself, Raef felt a pang of sympathy for the young knight.
Seth had been gone a few moments when Zale called out, “I know you’re there, rat. I can smell you.”
Raef froze.
“Get out here,” the knight commanded.
Raef’s breath caught. He could run, but Zale could call for help. Lowering his hood, Raef dropped his unsheathed knife inside it and placed his hands atop his head.
His stomach tightened to a stone as he stepped into the sword’s light.
“I’m unarmed.”
“You reek like a sewer. What are you doing down here?”
“Nothing,” he tried to sound confused.
“Here to steal, I’d bet.” Zale twisted the sword, aiming its flaming point at Raef’s eye. “I should blind you, or take your hand. That’s what they do to thieves in a civilized city.”
The tremor spread through Raef as the flames danced closer.
The priests of Hyperion preached their god’s mercy, but Raef had never seen it. Where Seth had seemed earnest, this man wore a cruel sneer.
Raef slid his hands to the back of his skull. The knife was the slightest weight there.
“I only came to pray. Really.”
“Nobody prays in the dark,” Zale said.
“Except heretics.”
Zale flinched at the admission, giving Raef time enough to bat the sword aside with his right arm. He drew the knife from his hood with his left hand and punched it into the knight’s shoulder, between the leather joint in the armor’s plates.
The sword rang against the floor. Raef expected its flames to die, but they flared instead, growing brighter as Zale backhanded him with a growl.
The mailed glove felt like a hammer. Stars lit Raef’s vision. He tried to turn, to run, but Zale lashed out with his boot. Raef felt something inside him crack as he flipped. Groaning, he landed hard against the stone of the floor.
Zale bent to seize him by the throat.
“Who do you serve?” he demanded, lifting Raef until they were face-to-face. The stars began to dance.
“No one,” Raef sputtered.
“Don’t lie to me, boy.”
Zale tightened his grip.
“Phoebe.”
“A moon worshipper?” The knight’s eyebrows lifted as he grinned. “I thought we’d killed you all.”
He began to squeeze.
The stars winked out as blackness grew at the edge of Raef’s sight.
Raef, a woman whispered.
She sounded far away. Faint. She couldn’t be a shade. Shades never spoke.
Raef.
“Lady?” he sputtered.
“Don’t worry,” Zale snarled. “I’ll send you to her.”
Something in Raef’s left arm shifted, sliding like ice between his bones, burning with cold.
A glossy shard slipped into hi
The black blade ignored the knight’s bracer, passing easily through flesh and bone. It dissolved like ink in water as Zale released Raef and staggered back. Eyes rolling up into his head, the knight slumped to the floor.
Raef sat on the cold marble, gulping air. A bruise marked the inside of his wrist where the thing had emerged.
Darkness bloomed as the sword’s fire died, but Raef could see.
The bronze doors of the tombs glinted in his shadowsight. The mournful statues stared with empty eyes.
“Lady?” he rasped again.
No one answered, not that he was surprised.
His prayers had gone unanswered since the knights had trapped her in the Underworld, on the Ebon Sea, but Raef hadn’t imagined that voice.
He certainly hadn’t imagined the knife.
It had felt familiar, like an old dream finally remembered after nights of trying.
It hadn’t killed Zale. His chest rose and fell like a steady bellows.
Raef wanted to spit on him but couldn’t spare the breath. Finding his feet, he kicked the unconscious man, just to make certain he was truly out.
“I should kill you.” Raef bent to jerk his metal knife from Zale’s shoulder. “It’s what you did to her.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and let out a long breath.
“But I’m not you.”
Raef cleaned his metal blade on Zale’s sleeve, cut the strings to his purse, and pocketed it.
Zale slept almost peacefully, the trickle of red from the stab wound the only sign of the fight.
Raef scanned the crypt but saw no shades, no hungry ghosts crowding to drink the blood.
The temple of Hyperion and its crypt sat atop a warren of ancient tunnels. Rumor said they predated the gods, were left from the time of the demons, that Hyperion’s priests had built their golden dome here and buried their saints and heroes beneath it to seal away the things that might rise out of the darkness.
Raef wasn’t certain how much truth there was to it. Even he wasn’t curious enough to explore those depths, but perhaps it explained why the shades, ever present since the moon had left the sky, did not intrude here.
Zale should be safe. Raef hadn’t cut him deeply. Someone would come, probably soon, and he did not want to be there when they did.
Rising, he stepped toward the tomb, blinking when its door swung open at a touch. The darkness deepened, and a blue glow, Raef’s shadowsight, settled over the room He saw no traps, no trip wire that might sound an alarm.
This seemed too easy. Perhaps the knights were just that confident in their flaming swords.
Raef rubbed his beard and immediately regretted it. His jaw was sore, not broken, but the pain made him want to go back and kick Zale again.
The tomb’s walls were covered with restful frescoes, a temple on a rocky island surrounded by sheep and olive trees. They clashed with the long box of rough, pitted iron resting on the floor.
Raef had come on a tip from a friend. Maurin had said the Knights of Hyperion had brought a box by ship, that they’d carried it to the crypt and placed it in a tomb.
Grave robbing wasn’t his usual style, but everything in Hyperion’s temple was golden, or at least gilded. He could expect jewels if the coffin held the bones of a saint or bishop, and a little desecration of Hyperion’s holy place would serve as some payback for what Raef owed the sun god.
Inching closer, he froze at the device spanning the lid, a series of interlocking crescents forged from tarnished silver.
Raef reached for the box and jerked back from the blistering cold.
That symbol, Phoebe’s symbol, should not be here.
The knights had torn down her towers, her temples. They’d scoured her symbol from the world.
Seeing it, Raef could not turn back. A thousand flaming swords could come for him, but what, or whoever, was inside the box belonged to her.
Rubbing his hands together to get the feeling back, he ran the tip of his knife along the seam of the lid, but found no keyhole, no catch or hidden button.
Choosing the hard way, he cast about for something he could use to smash the lock, seized on one of the brass urns in the corner, and reached for it. His wrist flared not with pain, but with a pulse, like a second, waking heartbeat.
The shadowknife slipped free of his skin. Solid before, it felt softer this time, malleable, like wax or clay.
Raef turned it back and forth, unable to shake the feeling of familiarity. It gleamed blue-black in his shadowsight, sparkling like it held distant stars, a bit of glossy night made solid in his hand.
He tested the edge with a fingertip, but it didn’t cut him, didn’t knock him unconscious like it had Zale. Whatever it was, he was immune.
It had to be from Phoebe, a sure sign that she wanted him here, that she wanted him to open the box.
Instinct, or a forgotten memory, whispered instructions to him. Raef pressed the knife to the emblem on the lid. The blade slid in and hardened. He turned it like a key.
The box came alive as tumblers rattled and gears whirred beneath its iron skin.
Raef retreated to watch the tomb’s door, certain the noise would bring more knights.
He could walk but breathing hurt where Zale had kicked him. He had no doubt how another fight would go. Whatever was inside had better not be too heavy.
It could be books. Phoebe’s priests had treasured books and scrolls above all else.
It could be the bones of a Hierophant, one of her most cherished disciples.
The box fell silent.
The streets had toughened Raef’s stomach. Bones he could handle. A fresher body, well—maybe. Raef took a deep breath and tugged the collar of his shirt over his nose. He pulled his hands inside his sleeve and reached for the lid.
He’d expected an old corpse, withered, not a fresh-faced youth close to his own age. Hair blacker than his framed a pretty face tinged in blue. The man’s arms lay stiff, folded across a narrow chest.
He’s dead. Raef thought. Of course he’s dead.
The corpse wore a homespun shirt and sandals. He might have been a farmer, a laborer—anyone poor. He certainly didn’t look worth a temple burial or an honor guard of Hyperion’s devoted knights. They hadn’t buried him with anything useful, anything Maurin could fence.
He had to be Phoebe’s, but if so, why hadn’t they burned him?
The inner lid of the box was marked with a design, a pattern of circles and lines Raef knew he recognized but could not place.
He leaned closer, squinting, and brushed the corpse’s hand.
The man sucked in air as if surfacing from a long dive.
“Holy Moon!” Raef exclaimed, stumbling back.
He kept his distance and tried to force his heart to slow its pounding. The man sat up, his green eyes searching the darkness.
Raef recognized the look on the sleeper’s face. He’d worn it himself when he’d fled the tower’s smoldering ruins, seen it anytime he’d spied his reflection in a window or puddle. A lost boy had stared back, his pale features numbed by the loss of the only family he’d ever known.
