The Moonlight Blade

Table of Contents Copyright Dedication Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Chapter Thirty-Eight Chapter Thirty-Nine Chapter Forty Chapter Forty-One Chapter Forty-Two Chapter Forty-Three Chapter Forty-Four Chapter Forty-Five Chapter Forty-Six Chapter Forty-Seven Chapter Forty-Eight Chapter Forty-Nine Chapter Fifty Acknowledgments About the Author The Liar’s Crown, by Abigail Owen This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Copyright © 2023 by Tessa Barbosa. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher. Entangled Publishing, LLC 644 Shrewsbury Commons Ave., STE 181 Shrewsbury, PA 17361 [email protected] Entangled Teen is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC. Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com. Edited by Alexander Te Pohe and Molly Majumder Cover design by Bree Archer Cover images bysharpner/Shutterstock, roverto007/Depositphotos Interior design by Toni Kerr ISBN 978-1-64937-336-6 Ebook ISBN 978-1-64937-337-3 Manufactured in the United States of America First Edition March 2023 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 At Entangled, we want our readers to be well-informed. If you would like to know if this book contains any elements that might be of concern for you, please check the book’s webpage. https://entangledpublishing.com/books/the-moonlight-blade For Selene and Evander. Prologue The day our mother left us, we fought. The sky was a dark boiling gray that flooded the roads with rain. Manay Halna and my sister, Kuran, were holed up in an inn to wait out the weather, but I raced after my mother, kicking up mud that splashed up to my knees. The storm drenched me to the bone, but I didn’t care. “Go back, Narra,” Inay commanded from atop a borrowed pony. “I’ll return from Bato-Ko in a week. I’m only settling some matters with the bank.” “I just want to have a look, Inay,” I called as I wiped rain from my eyes. “I’ll keep my winter coat on and my scarf wrapped tight so that no one can see my skin. Please! Who will pay attention? Do you truly hate your mother so much that you won’t even let us see the place we were born?” I was prepared to walk all the way to the city of Bato-Ko with nothing but the clothes I wore. “Enough!” she snapped. “Maybe I’ve been a terrible mother, because I’ve never stopped you from forming your own opinions or talking back to me. That is Chapter One In a little over two weeks, the country of Tigang will crown its new ruler. This means in three days’ time, people will start dying. Young people not much older than I am already mass outside the gates of the glass fortress. I pass these bright-eyed, confident soon-to-be bodies. I dare not linger, because I am here for a different reason. They are simply in my way. I stick my hands in my pockets and make myself small. I beg pardon and squeeze past jostling elbows, careful not to touch anyone with my bare skin. There are more volunteers than I expected. To enter the competition might once have been an honor, but my mother always scoffed at the idea. “Leave it to the desperate and the foolish,” she often said. “You are neither of those things.” But the last time I saw my mother, I promised her I would never come to Bato-Ko, and yet here I am. The months since my mother disappeared melt into a lifetime of dusty roads and secrets. I’m afraid I will forget my mother completely. It’s already getting harder to recall her face. I see nothing of her