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  SHADOW MOON

  THE GODDESS CHRONICLES BOOK 4

  KB ANNE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictiously.

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  Published February 2020

  Copyright © 2020 by K.B. ANNE

  All rights reserved.

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  No part of this book may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

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  Published by Gripping Tales, LLC, Pennsylvania.

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  Cover Design by Anika Willmans, Ravenborn Covers

  Editorial Services by Laura Parnum, Laura Parnum Books

  Created with Vellum

  To Laura Parnum,

  You get me!

  Thanks for being an editor extraordinaire.

  Any Ty9@s are my own.

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  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Queen of Swords

  2. The Lovers

  3. The Hanged Man

  4. A Howling Tea Time

  5. Watch out, Devil Child

  6. The Magician

  7. Godly Power . . . Activate!

  8. Six of Pentacles Reversed

  9. Nothing to See Here

  10. Two of Cups

  11. Did You See That?

  12. And Down They Go

  13. Nine of Wands

  14. Cool Case of BS

  15. Seven of Swords

  16. Dream Thieves

  17. Two of Wands

  18. Flown the Coop

  19. The World

  20. Six of Pentacles

  21. Ace of Cups

  Join the Koven

  Shadow Moon Tarot Card Index

  About the Author

  Also by KB Anne

  Oak Moon: The Goddess Chronicles Book 5

  1. Fire Is Friend

  Prologue

  The throne room was forbidden to Caer on this eve of Samhain, and she didn’t understand why. As princess, she should have unrestricted movement throughout the castle, coming and going as she pleased just like she did at all times—well, with the exception of her nursemaid following her about, though Caer was talented at losing her. But alas, her father forbade her from entering it tonight.

  She thought it cruel of her father and unforgiveable. She’d find another way in to watch the unexpected guests, especially on this most auspicious of nights.

  Once, long ago, she had overheard her nursemaid talk about secret tunnels that wound their way behind the rooms and hallways of the castle. They led to underground dungeons full of monsters that would turn even the strongest of the guards to greasy pools of cowardice if not for the powerful magic cast upon them by her father’s trusted Druid.

  She had stalked around the castle, pressing on stones, hovering her hand over cracks in the mortar, and sometimes kicking the impenetrable rock in hopes that she’d find her way to the secret tunnels. She’d had no intention of sneaking into the dungeons. Those monsters were best kept away from people. But the tunnels? Well, that was a temptation she couldn’t resist.

  She’d searched for the tunnels through most of the castle, patiently and painstakingly for many moons, until find them she did. The fates finally blessed her the night of Samhain. Earlier that afternoon her nursemaid had discovered Caer skulking around the castle in search of the tunnels and had punished the princess for her unsupervised wanderings by sending her to bed long before sunset. In a fit of anger and desperation, Caer sought to block the entrance to her room by shoving the dresser away from the long tapestry that had hung from her wall since birth. That was when she found the tunnel entrance at last.

  Caer grabbed the torch off the wall and pushed the loose stone in. The creaking of wood pulleys and the grinding of stone against stone followed before the “door” appeared. Without a backward glance, she crept into the tunnel, shutting the door and her only known exit behind her.

  She trod carefully along the musty passage, trying not to sneeze from the dust and mold. The bitter cold raised goosebumps on her arms. She wished she’d grabbed a shawl, but it was too late now. The Samhain ceremony would begin when the moon became visible in the night sky. She’d do without warmth if she wished to watch the festivities.

  At each intersection, she closed her eyes and pictured the corridors that ran parallel to the tunnels. Based on her sense of direction she’d turn left or right, pacing off the length of the hallways she had traveled ever since her legs had been able to teeter down them. She wound her way through the castle, confident that she was heading in the right direction. But when she didn’t arrive at the throne room when she thought she should, she began to doubt herself. Her father’s castle was large, especially compared to the other castles she’d visited when she was younger, but still the throne room couldn’t be much farther. If the tunnels went any deeper underground, she’d wind up discovering the dungeons, and she didn’t have the stomach for real-life monsters. The ones in her imagination were enough.

  When she was sure that Derg himself would open the gates to the Underworld for her, she heard footsteps thundering on stone. She knew her father had one guest in particular that he didn’t want her to see—she suspected he was the main reason she wasn’t allowed into the throne room that evening—but it sounded like hordes of guests were participating in the ceremony tonight. All the more reason to hurry.

  A narrow shaft of light broke through from the stone wall and hit the opposite one. She listened first, priding herself on her patience and cautionary discretion. When it seemed that no one was standing on the other side of the peephole, she leaned toward it. She could barely see through the opening, but that didn’t stop her from trying. Her father sat on his throne. In front of him stood the one she presumed was his honored guest. The one he didn’t want Caer to meet.

  He stood taller than any man she’d ever seen, including Percy and Roman, her father’s most formidable personal guards. Her father smiled tightly at the guest—out of character for him. The King was known as a most hospitable host, and his reputation grew each time an enchanted bard came to visit. But this beast of a man was no bard. Even Percy and Roman seemed to shrink away from him.

  “He must be deformed in some way,” she whispered to herself. It was the only explanation for her father’s cold greeting.

  As if the man knew she was hiding on the other side of the wall, he spun on his heel to face her. Gasping, she jumped away from her peephole. A large leather patch covered one of his eyes. She had heard of pirates that raided ships and raped and pillaged. The giant must be one. But why had her father invited him on the eve of one of their most sacred holidays, a day marking the beginning of the long winter, a day when the veil between the worlds was the thinnest?

  She prayed silently to herself that he hadn’t heard her, and if he had, that he wouldn’t alert her father to her presence. Her heart raced. Her nerves were a knot of worry. She wanted desperately to watch the ceremony but was terrified that the giant pirate would inform her father that she’d snuck out of her room and was spying on them.

  That’s when the shouts began, soon followed by screaming. Samhain was a time of celebration and occasionally bawdy behavior with little cause
for terror. She risked peeking into the throne room and soon wished she hadn’t. The giant pirate brought a long, curved, jagged silver blade to her father’s neck. Her father’s eyes met hers, and he whispered something just as the blade sliced his throat.

  Blood spurted from the wound, covering the giant pirate.

  “No!” she screamed.

  She watched paralyzed as the giant strode to the wall she stood behind. She managed to back away, but not before she heard him roar, “She’s in the tunnels. Find the princess. She’s my prize!”

  “As you wish, my Lord Balor,” his men shouted, and hundreds of heavy boots thundered out of the throne room.

  Tears ran down her cheeks. She wanted to curl up in a ball and cry for her father, but not yet. Not if she wanted to live.

  She couldn’t return to her rooms. That would only lead to imprisonment, and she would not be a slave. Not to the giant pirate. Not to anyone.

  As she ran from the throne room, her face pinched and her vision blurred, but it wasn’t from tears. It was from something else. Something that felt an awful lot like magic. Had her father cast a spell on her as Balor slit his throat? She wanted to weep for the man who’d used his last breath to save her rather than to save himself. He was a noble faerie king, and she was nothing more than a spoiled princess who had snuck out of her chambers just so she wouldn’t miss the festivities.

  Soon her feet splashed in water. She must have reached one of drains that carried the castle wastes into the lake. How long before Balor’s men descended upon her? Had they found other entries into the tunnels? Were they already searching the grounds? It was only a matter of time before she was caught, but she couldn’t give up. She owed her father that much.

  Her arms and legs ached with exertion—and something else. Her body seemed to be shrinking in on itself. But time was running out. She couldn’t stop and figure out what was happening to her. Not with a giant pirate after her. She shook her head in anger. And to think she’d been worried about monsters in the dungeons—they were nothing compared to the one searching for her.

  The water level rose until soon she was wading through it. It hindered her progress, but she refused to slow down. Goosebumps erupted across her skin followed by sharp pains, as if a thousand needles had suddenly punctured her flesh. She shrieked as she fought through the waist-high water.

  Feathers poked out of her pores. She didn’t understand what was happening.

  Her arms and legs tucked up inside her body, shifting into wings and claws. An incredible pressure beat through her brain and exploded out of her nose—or what was once her nose. Now it seemed as if she had a beak.

  “What’s—” but before she could finish the thought, her body shot through the water like an arrow through the sky. No longer was she slowed by clumsy appendages like arms and legs. Now she swam through the water faster than she had ever moved before. She didn’t know what her father had shifted her into, but she knew she was no longer completely human.

  She dove out of the tunnel and plunged into the lake behind the castle. If she reached the surface too close to the castle walls, Balor might find her. She propelled herself through the water, pushing her new form to even greater speeds. When her lungs could no longer hold out, she broke the surface and took a deep breath. But it was no breath at all. It was a squawk, soon accompanied by other squawks. A cacophony of them. She found herself in the middle of a flock of . . . a flock of swans.

  She’d never known a shapeshifter before. Had her father been one, or did he turn her into one to protect her?

  A loud roar broke through the night. “Find her!” A man made that noise, but really not a man at all. Balor—part giant, part pirate, and part . . . something else. She didn’t plan to stick around long enough to find out what.

  A bright flash followed by a loud explosion erupted from the castle. Fire ignited the trees and brush that surrounded the castle walls, spreading across the countryside. Balor was going to burn down the world to find her.

  And she refused to be his prisoner.

  She was no longer the princess of the faerie king. She was Caer, orphaned shapeshifter who would be hunted to the end of the world. She didn’t know where she would go, but she couldn’t remain here.

  Caer lifted her head, and her body followed. She flapped her wings and flew through the night sky. One hundred fifty swans followed behind her. They would protect her with their lives, just as her father had done.

  1

  Queen of Swords

  Earliest Memory

  The old woman found her curled up in the fetal position down at the water’s edge. She didn’t know where the girl had come from or what had happened to her. Only that she was covered with cuts, scratches, bruises, and dirt. The woman swaddled the unconscious girl in a blanket, making sure to blacken the white tufts of hair sticking out on either side of her head that marked her as being touched by the gods with their ancient magic. When satisfied that the girl’s true identity was hidden from prying eyes, she tucked her into the cart pulled by her trusted pony, Nimblefoot, along with the shells, seaweed, and river rock she’d journeyed to the beach to collect. She took care to circumvent nearby villages and hamlets the girl could be from. It wasn’t that she wanted to keep the girl for herself, but based on the condition of her young companion, something had happened to her that was not of the natural world. Her intuition told her that the girl was in serious danger and in need of her protection.

  She traveled for many miles, climbing the steep mountains that led back to her hut. All the while the girl slept as if she hadn’t slept for many years. The jostle of the cart, the bitter kiss of wind, even the harsh cackle of passersby didn’t rouse the girl. At times the woman tried to wake her but to no avail. She feared the poor girl would die before she could tend to her with her own form of magic. When the woman was far enough away from prying eyes, she made a small fire and boiled a batch of nourishing soup for her passenger. The girl did not stir or open her eyes, but when the woman held up a spoon to her mouth, she swallowed the liquid.

  After two days of being spoon-fed, the girl began to spend more hours awake than asleep.

  “Where are you from?” the woman asked her.

  When the child did not reply, she tried a different question. “What is your name?”

  Again the girl didn’t respond. The woman feared that perhaps the child was deaf and dumb, or perhaps the horrors of whatever she’d experienced had removed her ability to speak or respond to outside contact. The woman had witnessed such afflictions before. Sometimes, if the stars were aligned and if the proper herbs were in season, she could correct whatever damage had been wrought. But there were other times, times she didn’t not like to think about, that the victim was lost. She hoped her young companion would be part of the group she saved.

  Exhaustion wound its arms around the girl again and pulled her back into its embrace. A soft sigh, soon followed by a rumbling snore, told the woman her passenger would not provide much company for the next few hours. No matter. The going was treacherous, and it was best if she wasn’t distracted.

  Nimblefoot was proving to be well suited to his name. Even when he pulled the cart along the loosest scree on the steepest of slopes, he didn’t miss a step. Energy pulsed through the air, hanging heavily in and around the cart. The woman wondered if perhaps the child was the source of it, but when she ran her fingers over her, searching for either an injury or magic, she felt nothing. She traced her hands along the edges of the child’s face, thinking perhaps the magic was imbued in her. She murmured a searching spell as her palms hovered above the white feathers on either side of the child’s temples, and there she found the source, deeply embedded. The most primordial power of love had been invoked to protect the child.

  She gasped as a vision from the child’s past came to her, marveling at what the poor girl had endured. Her passenger would be in great danger if ever discovered. It was more than happenstance that she’d found her. Destiny had played a role.
Perhaps fate too.

  Twice she heard wolves howling in the night, calling to their brethren in search of food. She had never feared the forest or the wolves before, but strange magic was afoot. She and the girl were in danger of becoming their next meal.

  Nimblefoot snorted as if reading her thoughts.

  “Of course you would make a tasty morsel too, but as you’ve always carried me where I need to go, I will ensure your safe passage through the mountains as well. Rather than dwelling on the virtue of our possible nutrition to the wilds, let’s get on with our travels, shall we?”

  He snorted again.

  “Are you talking to your animal?” the girl asked. “And does he understand you?”

  The woman smiled. The girl may be enhanced with ancient magic, but her questions suggested a bright heart and an eager mind. However, today would not begin their journey to Otherworldly discussions. Today, they would remain firmly in the world they were rooted in.

  “It’s good that you’re awake again. I take it you’re feeling better?”

  “Yes,” the girl said, stifling a yawn.

  It wouldn’t be long before the child found respite again, but if the woman could gather a few tasty morsels of her own about the child, she’d have much to ponder for the remainder of their travels.