Moonfall, #2
The Ballad of Falling Dragons
by Sarah A. Parker
Contents
Chapter 3
Overview
Tyroth’s pregnant sister steals Elluin’s diary and prepares a covert escape from The Shade, fearing a Bloodlace test that could reveal Kaan as the paternal line. After unlocking a cupboard and shedding a glamour, she changes into leathers and confronts Ayda, who awakens.
Choosing mercy, she gives Ayda bloodstone and urges her to flee Tyroth, but Ayda refuses. The narrator leaves to warn Kaan, setting a collision course with Tyroth’s rule and Elluin’s buried truth.
Summary
The narrator races down the palace stairs, Elluin’s diary bound beneath her bodice, reeling from the arrival of a Bloodlace who might test her unborn child’s blood. She fears the lineage will point to Kaan, not Tyroth, risking war. Resolute, she plots a stealth escape to reach a hidden carter and Moltenmaw escort, then return to Kaan with the truth—even if it breaks him.
Moving through servant corridors, she reaches a locked cupboard. Using a pungent concoction from Roan and a pre-drawn fusing rune, she unlocks the door, slips inside, and drops her glamour as she changes into leathers. She regrets keeping her bangle but pockets it.
Inside, she finds Ayda unconscious, gagged, and wearing modest underwools. Recognizing Ayda’s early pregnancy and Tyroth’s cruelty, the narrator condemns The Shade as a place where females and younglings are exploited and secrets fester. As she finishes redressing Ayda in palace garb, Ayda awakens and notices the diary.
Ayda quietly promises not to reveal anything. The narrator, believing Ayda understands Elluin’s fate and Tyroth’s taint, offers a heavy pouch of bloodstone and begs her to flee Arithia. Ayda refuses, telling the narrator to go.
Warning that the world is unkind to females, bastards, and nulls, the narrator extinguishes her moonlight, leaves the bloodstone, and slips back into the corridor. She departs to warn Kaan and outrun the Bloodlace’s test, carrying Elluin’s truth toward an inevitable reckoning with Tyroth.
Who Appears
- Unnamed narrator (Tyroth’s sister)Pregnant POV; steals Elluin’s diary, sheds glamour, spares Ayda, and escapes to warn Kaan.
- AydaPalace woman, newly pregnant; awakens, promises silence, refuses to flee despite danger.
- Tyroth VaeRuler of The Shade and the narrator’s brother; his oppressive rule and paternity loom over events.
- KaanThe narrator’s destination and likely paternal line; must hear Elluin’s truth before blood testing.
- Elluin (Raeve)Former queen whose diary exposes dangerous truths, motivating the narrator’s escape.
- RoanBrewer of the pungent concoction used to dissolve the lock’s fusing rune.
- BloodlaceArrives to test bloodlines; threatens to expose paternity and trigger conflict.