Page 469 of Kingdoms of Night

I pulled back, heart galloping as I let the location reach my eyes and settle beyond them.

Glimmering, silver dunes stretched between the woods and a dark sea bordered by white rocky formations, and surrounding them were peculiar structures. Spiraling towers scraped the dazzling darkness and spherical domes and crescentic structures dotted the surfaces.

Outlining it all, the sky was littered with bright flecks, some set in clouds of luminous stardust, painting the lighter sections lilac. No constellation I could make out looked as it had before the Moon was shrouded.

The Moon.

My surveying turn ended with a view I couldn’t grasp.

In the near distance was a blue sphere overlaid with foamy waves and green-tinged patches.

“What—what is this?”

“The world you have left behind,” he said, a smoking burn in the scene of silver and ivory. “Welcome to mine.”

CHAPTERTWO

Iwas on the Moon.

No matter how long I stared at the emerging details, at the being before me, I couldn’t quite believe it.

No one had heard more about the gods than I had, and how many of them had come from beyond our heavens to rule us earthbound mortals. That didn’t mean I had ever given much thought to where they lived, or that the celestial realms were habitable.

Astronomers had told us our world was one of at least seven, not including the sun and moon. Each was named for a god, or even perceived as being a manifestation of that very deity. Not once did I hear them referred to asplaces.

Yet here I was, viewing it as I had the others, from the unthinkable vantage point of the pale disk that used to trade spots with the Sun. A blue ball hovering below me.

The patches in the blue had to be land in the oceans, but I couldn’t begin to guess which was my own.

I was farther away from home than I could have imagined. And that fact was just beginning to sink in, too fast to adjust to.

At a loss for words, my feelings could only be expressed in harsh trembling that rattled the beads hanging from my gown’s wrappings and veil.

“Meissa.” He turned me, hand on my shoulder free of the consuming shadows, baring curving talons and grey skin. “You have no need to worry.”

I screamed at the top of my lungs.

The sound of my terror echoed for miles, waking the gods knew what lurked in the peculiar woods. I heard movement not just from around us, but above as well.

I didn’t dare look up again.

For some strange reason, he attempted to soothe me, almost petting the shoulder he’d held. “It is all right.”

“Is it?” I shrieked, shrill with climbing hysteria. “No one told me—no one said—Iam on another world!”

“You are.”

“Why am I on another world?”

“Brides of importance exchange their homes for their husbands among humanity, the same would be expected here.”

“But no one told me about this!”

The expressionless silver mask somehow conveyed the expression that tinged his tone. “Then what were you told?”

He was as confused as I was.

“That I was marrying the shadow beast that held the Moon hostage!” I blurted, no use in attempting to regather my wits.

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