Moon Dark Smile

Tessa Gratton

• Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781534498167
• eBook ISBN: 9781534498174

The fate of an Empire lies with a headstrong Heir and a restless demon in this lush young adult fantasy that's a "tapestry of self-discovery, redolent with vivid imagery…[s]ensual and strange" ( Kirkus Reviews ) for fans of Laini Taylor and Girl, Serpent, Thorn. Ever since she was a girl, Raliel Dark-Smile's best friend has been the great demon that lives in the palace. As the daughter of the Emperor, Raliel appears cold and distant to those around her, but what no one understands is that she and the great demon, Moon, have a close and unbreakable bond and are together at all times. Moon is bound to the Emperor and his two consorts, Raliel's parents, and when Raliel comes of age, she will be bound to Moon as well, constrained to live in the Palace for the rest of her days.Raliel is desperate to see the Empire Between Five Mountains, and she feels a deep kinship with Moon, who longs to break free of its bonds. When the time finally arrives for Raliel's coming of age journey, she discovers a dangerous way to take Moon with her, even as she hides this truth from her travel companion, the beautiful, demon-kissed bodyguard Osian Redpop. But Osian is hiding secrets of his own, and when a plot surfaces that threatens the Empire, Raliel will have to decide who she can trust and what she'll sacrifice for the power to protect all that she loves.

BLUE

THE SELEGAN RIVER

THE SELEGAN RIVER ADORED gossip.

Maybe because gossip was messy and tickled, flowed hard when obstructed or spread fingers in every direction when let loose. It babbled and roared and could worm its way into the stoniest heart or carve pits and canyons into the most stolid and hard reputations.

It was like a river.

Today the Selegan held the most delicious—dangerous—gossip it had heard in years. So, naturally, it swam against its own currents north to the base of the Fifth Mountain to tell its friend the great demon immediately.

Well, not immediately. If it wished, the Selegan River dragon could literally be anywhere along its river the instant it considered doing so. It was the river, after all, and so if it had been all the way south at the sea, bobbing among the docks in the capital, it could summon a flare of aether and be in a different part of its winding, strong water body, even miles and miles and miles north at the pinnacle of the empire where the Fifth Mountain bubbled and smoked.

But the pleasure of swimming upstream was such a treat—and the gossip so good—the dragon indulged itself. Its water slammed against its scales and tugged at the feathers of its eye-flares and beard. It drove itself faster with all three tails, though that was for show and exercise: aether alone could speed it up. The dragon tucked its silver feather wings against its sleek snaking body and opened its mouth to let water slide between its fangs, then arced up and leaped into the sky, spraying the water into the air over the twin villages of Silverbank and Pearlbank that squatted on stilts to either side of the wide Selegan. The spray caught sunlight and became rainbows just as the dragon dove back into itself, carefully avoiding the flat-bottomed fishing boat filled with cheering humans.

Oh, the Selegan was giddy with its news. Maybe slightly because the gossip was dangerous, and maybe because the dragon knew his friend would be so shocked. It was not often Selegan was able to surprise Night Shine.

Or maybe the Selegan River was so excited by this gossip because it involved the Heir to the Moon. Selegan had what Night Shine laughingly called a crush on the heir. But how could it not? She’d named herself after a dragon!

The river remembered when the heir had been born eighteen years ago, and the dragon had wiggled around the docks, trying to get as near to the castle as it could to hear more. The great demon of the palace disliked spirits tugging at the aether in its city but didn’t mind the dragon as much—though it refused Selegan entry into the palace proper. While the Selegan had wanted to dart to the Fifth Mountain right away with the news, it had waited and waited to hear what the baby’s name would be. And the name never came.

Nearly everyone and certainly every spirit was shocked—how could a living thing be safe without a name? they wailed or whispered, tingling with nerves. And Kirin Dark-Smile had sent out messages to the whole empire declaring that his child was healthy and strong and would grow to choose her own name. The Selegan was scandalized, and when it finally told Night Shine, the great demon’s mouth had popped open to reveal teeth like tiny white mushrooms, and she’d fluttered eyelashes as long and curling green as ferns—she’d been making her shape out of only plant life for a few months, as sort of a game and experiment, and the Selegan had already been subjected twice to an argument concerning whether fungi even counted as plant life.

In her surprise, Night Shine’s form had melted into that of the girl she’d been when they’d first met, and so the Selegan had put itself into their human form, too. Night Shine threw thin arms around them and hugged tight enough that tears leaked from her human-looking eyes. She’d whispered, “Oh, dragon, did Kirin really say that? That his child would name herself ?”

“Yes,” they’d answered, patting her back in little off-rhythm taps.

“It’s because he really messed up with names once.”

“Yours?”

“Mine.” And Night Shine had smiled and smiled until her mouth curved too big for her face and she burst into a new shape: all smile, with a hundred mouths—human and dragon and wolf and duck and eagle and tiny butterfly and fish, oh, several fish, and all of them full of teeth and laughing.

Then the mouths started talking at once, with several threads of thought, and the Selegan had to pay attention to track them all and answered only one at a time, because they were a dragon, not a great demon, and had only one mouth for each shape.

Then, eight years later the little heir had finally picked a name, and the Selegan River had heard the story from folks swimming in a sandy little bend of its waters north of the city. It raced north again to tell Night Shine, this time finding her up at the lake in the heart of the Fifth Mountain, surrounded by dawn sprites in every color of the sun, and the sorceress Shadows reclined on pillows beside a grove of shivering silver birches. The Selegan had splashed into the lake and swam to the edge, crawling out onto the sun-warmed rocks of the shore, and said, “The Heir to the Moon named herself !”

Shadows, always scary and elegant and solicitous of the river, leaned forward and tossed it a pear. Snapping it up, the Selegan enjoyed the crisp flavor and burst of aether imbued in the seeds.

As it crunched, considering a request for another, Night Shine plopped down beside its long scaly head and petted the crest of feathers arcing over one big blue eye. The great demon had been shaped like her girl-self, but her skin was dark-blue gemstone, glinting and faceted like cut and polished spinel, and her hair was long filaments of the finest crystal structure, pale as aquamarine. Her eyes were a gentle, sparkling brown, as usual. “What is her name?”

The dragon made itself smaller but remained sinuous and dragon-shaped and curled its body around Night Shine to properly settle its long muzzle against her thigh. She smelled like singed earth and sweet fire balsam. The Selegan twitched its tails excitedly and said, “Raliel Dark-Smile,” with relish.

“Very pretty,” Night Shine said, clearly not impressed enough.

The Selegan leaned up to explain, just as the sorceress Shadows snorted.

“Raliel is a dragon’s name,” the sorceress said.

“Raliel,” said the Selegan, carefully pronouncing it through its long fangs, “was a dragon who lived in a lake called Tylish and was murdered by a terrible witch—it became a demon and swallowed miles and miles of aether from fields and forests and the whole entire lake before it was stopped!”

Night Shine’s eyes widened.

“But!” Selegan shivered in delight. “When it was stopped, its name—its aether—did not dissipate but became a song! And not only that but a song so pure and perfect and deadly, if you sing it, you’ll die within seven days.”

“Very impressive choice,” the sorceress drawled. “Especially for a child.”

“Wow!” Night Shine said breathlessly. “A dragon, a demon, and a murderous revenge song!”

The Selegan River rolled away, half into the water. This lake was not its water, or even connected to the spring down the peak that originated its river, but water was its preference no matter what, and this lake had no spirit of its own. Unless Night Shine counted, which maybe.

Night Shine asked, “Why did Raliel the dragon have a different name than its lake?”

Selegan said, “Oh, I am not certain. Perhaps it was not born of that lake, or perhaps humans renamed the lake. That might have weakened it enough for the witch to kill it.”

“Really! If the empire collectively decided to rename your river, that would weaken you?”

Turning mournful eyes upon her, the Selegan transformed into its human shape. They preferred a plainly lovely form, neither particularly boyish nor girlish, pale like sunlight on water. Over the years they had aged themself up to a youthful sixteen or so and lengthened their silver-blond hair to fall past their waist. “Why would humans do that?”

“Oh, I don’t think they would, Selegan! I’m sorry. I only want to understand,” Night Shine said, petting their cheek with warm gemstone fingers. “Names, names, names, you know!”

The Selegan River nodded slowly, wisely, but did not know. Night Shine had had several names before Night Shine, and each one accompanied an iteration of herself so wildly different it seemed obvious to the dragon that there was such a connection between the self and the name. With a name, one could remake oneself. Literally if one was a spirit or demon or sorcerer—or aether creatures like dragons or unicorns or lions. And even humans could change with new names—new definitions of themselves. A person with a new name created a new perception for others, a new performance, a new perspective. Names came with histories, like Raliel and Dark-Smile; they came with homes, like the Selegan’s own name. They came with families, like the great demon of the palace, whose true name the Selegan River did not know but assumed tied it to the emperor and his consorts and his heir. (And Moon was probably part of it.)

Night Shine watched the Selegan with large eyes that seemed to gradually get even bigger, taking over her face. Fire flickered in her pupils, and little bright lights popped in and out of the browns of her irises, like fields of wildflowers budding and blossoming and fading in whole seasons as they stared back.

The Selegan River said, “I think if humans renamed my house and nobody said Selegan River anymore, it would not weaken me. It would kill me.”

“No!”

“Not turn me into a demon but into something else. Either I’d have to break free and keep my name as a dragon of the sky and winds, or let the new name remake me.”

The sorceress Shadows approached them, bare toes peeking out from beneath vivid purple skirts. She lifted the skirts and knelt beside Night Shine. Her cheeks were inhumanly sharp, with tiny black streaks like baby feathers slicked back toward her hairline, and one eye was as green as hemlock needles with a red-slitted pupil; the other white as seafoam, with the same red pupil. She said, “If Raliel Dark-Smile named herself, then nobody can take it from her.”

The Selegan River laughed in delight. “Good! That will keep her safe.”

Shadows grimaced. “Hardly.”

But Night Shine nodded eagerly. “Oh yes, it will keep her safe.”

“Foolish children,” the sorceress told them, placing fond hands on both their shoulders.

“I know!” Night Shine said, leaping to her feet. “Selegan, you should name yourself too, and then you will also be safe.”

“But—” they said.

“Curls of Light!” Night Shine suggested. She backed away, tilting her head this way and that. “Rainbow Lure! Um, A Single Silver Feather!”

“It doesn’t work if you make the name,” Shadows reminded the silly great demon.

But the river dragon basked in the names and flapped their hands at Night Shine so she would continue. Even if they liked their own name and never wished to be anything but the mighty Selegan River, it was nice to feel the love that flavored every offering. Better than juniper incense, better than aether-coins or honey cakes. Better than pearls.

Today, a decade after the Heir to the Moon named herself, the Selegan arrived at the lava meadow that blanketed the base of the Fifth Mountain. The meadow rolled away from the riverbank in emerald and pink and violet, fanning outward and up to the dark, sharp fangs of the vicious volcano. The Selegan burst out of the water and spun. Droplets of water became another cloud, and it roared through the rainbow for the great demon. Its roar was a high trumpet that echoed toward the mountain as they landed lightly on their feet in their preferred shape of the lovely youth.

Folding their legs, they sat on the crown of a knoll and played with matching the color of their trousers to the grass and their tunic to the exact shade of tiny purple alpine daisies. The Selegan closed their eyes and made their eyes purple, too. That wouldn’t last, they knew from experience. Their eyes always dripped back into watery silver-blue, rain-blue, the flashing white of sunlight ripples.

They heard a very soft trill of laughter. Opening their eyes, the dragon found themself surrounded by a swarm of butterflies!

The butterflies were small, indeed, the wings only the size of their thumbnails, and beating slowly in all sorts of colors, but especially amber, gold, and dark r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Names
• Blue
• Trust
• Knowing
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright