Ash an Fire

The Ashen Moon In the village of Greenford, the moon rose like a pale coin and hung low over slate roofs. Children told tales of sky-serpents and blood-drinkers, but Mira Thorne had never believed in ghosts of storybooks. She believed in work: mending nets, tending her mother’s hearth, watching the horizon for the promised caravans. When a dragon’s shadow passed across the moon one autumn night, it changed everything.