Moonfall, #2
The Ballad of Falling Dragons
by Sarah A. Parker
Contents
Chapter 24
Overview
Kaan reaches his mother’s home with Pyrok and Roan, suppresses Rygun’s power, and nearly collapses from the blood-rune pins. Raeve returns with the Book of Voyd, cold and self-reliant, removing and stitching her own wound while Roan extracts Kaan’s pins. Kaan dismisses the others, setting the stage for a private reckoning.
Summary
Kaan returns through the snow to his late mother’s house with Pyrok and Roan, washing blood from his hands and wrestling with grief and guilt. Inside, Pyrok drinks and bickers with Roan while Roan prepares tools to remove the blood-rune pins embedded in Kaan. Kaan suppresses Rygun’s power, triggering the dragon’s furious mental roars as exhaustion threatens to drop him.
In the suite, Roan readies a mending station while Pyrok stokes the hearth. Kaan chokes down a jitung berry to stay awake. Raeve arrives, distant and cold, leaving the stolen Book of Voyd by the door and taking a hard pull from Pyrok’s bottle. A strange silver thread shimmers around Raeve’s hand, which she pointedly ignores.
When Roan moves to treat Kaan, Kaan insists Raeve be helped first. Raeve answers by handling it herself: she digs the pin from her thigh, splashes spirits on the wound, and stitches it closed without flinching, signaling her independence and volatile state. The display unsettles but impresses the room.
Roan then extracts Kaan’s pins one by one while Kaan focuses on Raeve, reading her guarded expressions for cracks beneath her control. With the last pin out, the songs of Ignos and Bulder surge through Kaan in relief. Seizing the moment, Kaan orders the others out, asserting control and forcing privacy as the next conversation with Raeve looms.
Who Appears
- KaanNarrator; exhausted and blood-pinned, suppresses Rygun’s aid, prioritizes Raeve’s care, then orders others out for privacy.
- RaeveReturns with the Book of Voyd, distant; removes her own thigh pin and stitches the wound; a silver thread coils around her hand.
- RoanPrepares and performs the pin extractions on Kaan; banters with Pyrok; uses pain-voiding and mending tools methodically.
- PyrokDrinks, bickers with Roan, stokes the hearth via Ignos, and reacts warily to Raeve’s return and silver-thread anomaly.
- RygunKaan’s dragon; rages when Kaan walls him off, his power withheld while Kaan undergoes mending.