When the Moon Hatched
by Sarah A. Parker
Contents
Prologue
Overview
The prologue recounts the mythic creation of the world, the rise of dragons, and the disaster that began when slain dragons became moons and started falling back to the earth. The other Creators blamed Caelis, the unseen God of Aether, and imprisoned him inside the Aether Stone, binding his containment to a fae bloodline. Although the truth faded into legend over ages of peace, the chapter ends with a new moonfall, reopening the danger that once nearly destroyed the world.
Summary
The prologue presents the world’s creation through five divine beings. Caelis, the unseen God of Aether, offers empty space as a canvas; Bulder shapes the land into a divided world of sunlight and shadow; Rayne fills it with water and snow; Clode stirs it with restless air; and Ignos burns across it with fire. While the other Creators can be felt and seen, Caelis remains isolated and jealous, though he is grateful to help make life possible.
Life spreads across the new world, including peoples who learn to hear and speak the elemental songs and others who discover power in unreadable runes from a silver book linked to Caelis. The Creators take particular pride in dragons, which thrive in three forms across harsh regions: the Sabersythes of The Burn, the Moltenmaws of The Fade, and the Moonplumes of Netheryn. Their beauty and power make them prized, and daring people begin raiding nests to steal eggs.
As kingdoms grow and wars expand, some people use dragons as instruments of power, and many dragons are killed for their blood. In death, these dragons do not simply perish; they rise into the sky, curl into stone, and become moons. Then the moons begin to fall back to the world in catastrophic collisions, threatening to destroy creation itself.
After seven moonfalls, Clode, Rayne, Ignos, and Bulder conclude that Caelis is responsible because his empty aether can dislodge the dead dragons from their places in the sky. After another moonfall, the four Creators lure Caelis into a trap, tear his essence apart, and imprison him inside an ebony crystal called the Aether Stone. Fragments of Caelis’s silver cloak remain at the world’s poles as the aurora, while the stone is set into a rune-covered diadem and entrusted to a powerful fae guardian whose bloodline inherits the burden of containing Caelis.
Over vast spans of time, peace returns and the truth behind the Aether Stone fades into myth. The moons remain in the sky, and most people forget the old disaster’s cause. The prologue ends with the warning that, after more than five million phases, another moon has fallen, signaling the return of an ancient threat.
Who Appears
- CaelisInvisible God of Aether whose lonely emptiness helps create the world and later causes the moonfalls.
- BulderGod of Ground who shapes the land and later helps imprison Caelis.
- ClodeGoddess of Air, volatile and wild, who helps create the world and capture Caelis.
- RayneGoddess of Water who fills the world with seas, rain, and snow, then joins the trap.
- IgnosGod of Fire, consumed by desire for Clode, who later helps subdue Caelis.
- DragonsBeloved winged beasts whose deaths create the moons that begin falling onto the world.
- Unnamed fae guardianPowerful warrior chosen to bear the Aether Stone and contain Caelis through his bloodline.