Zdenka Ashspire
the Hushfall Countess
Named for the silver ash that falls on midwinter midnight, and the blood that stains the moon's pale face—a union of cold fire and quiet ruin.
You can draw a single hour of moonlight into your veins, turning your blood into a silver ether that lets you step through glass and mirror as if they were water. But each use leaves you feverish and thirsting, and the silver must be fed a drop of your own heart's blood before the next moonrise, or it calcifies and cracks from within.
- Familiar
- A moonblind mole named Divot, who burrows through the ash and hums the frequencies of buried things.
- Bloodline
- Covenant of the White Tide
You remember the exact sound a door makes when it closes for the last time. It was not a slamming sound. It was the soft click of a latch you had oiled yourself, three days before, with the last of the lamp oil. That night the moon hung full and low, and the well beneath the tower overflowed with your blood. You did not drown. You learned to breathe silver.