Greetings, all! A few housekeeping matters:

1. This is, if you're paying attention, a crossover between ACOTAR and the TVD/Originals world. However, many characters are introduced to either world for the first time, so there's a fair bit explained to them. You don't strictly have to have read/seen everything to understand this, but it will help;
2. The format for this work is that it is cut into "volumes", each with a prologue and four acts;
3. Credit where credit is due: The title of this series and the titles of individual acts are all songs by the band Hammock. The titles of the individual volumes are all taken from the German nursery rhyme "The Moon Has Risen";
4. I will do my best to update with a new act every week, but I am also currently working on an original piece (that is, if you'll believe, even more complicated than this piece of trash) as well as attending university and living a life;
5. That last part was a lie, I have no life, which leads me to
6. Please review! I know that's Typical Author Nonsense to say, but it really does help me get a grasp on how you're all doing with this, what's working, what's not, etc. I welcome constructive criticism and am fairly thick-skinned, so bring it.

Without further ado, here we go!

Thanks go to my glorious beta reader, J. Ace!

PROLOGUE

The Silence

Nine years ago …

It was a small darkness, the kind with close walls. Aeron knew each of the walls intimately—had traced them all so many times he was certain his fingerprints were burned into them, never to be separated from the stone that held him.

There was a comfort in those walls, Aeron knew. Lashings left hot, aching flesh for which the cold stone was a blessed relief. There was comfort in a prison when one knew how it held them, how it kept them safe. And Aeron's prison had nursed him as a babe, raised him at its breast, built his understanding of the world in the darkness, in the cold, in the quiet.

Aeron's prison had been his protection for as long as he'd had the eyes to see it, and it would remain his protection for as long as he kept breath in his lungs to fill it, never quite enough of it to banish the cold.

Even now, Aeron heard footsteps nearing his prison. His mother kept him deep in the mountain, further down than any knew to look. There was no chance that those footsteps belonged to anyone that didn't seek him, and yet they were heavy—boots and rattling armour—and unaccompanied by the clacking of heels on stone or the swish of the long skirts his mother favoured.

Light slid under the door from a nearing lamp, the sliver of blazing gold too much for Aeron's eyes. He covered his face with his hands, chains clinking at the movement.

Keys rattled on their ring as their holder selected one, and there was an ugly scrape as the key slipped into the lock. The heavy iron door groaned as it swung open, revealing more light that Aeron promptly hid himself away from.

"No need to shy away, boy," said a deep, mocking voice that plucked a fearful chord in him, like the thickest string on a harp he'd once seen on one of his excursions out of the prison to the labyrinth above. "I've come to deliver you some good news!"

Aeron kept his head down, his gaze away from the monster at the threshold.

"It's about your mother," he said, stepping forward and bringing his lamp with him. It illuminated the prison, revealing the scratches on the walls, the claw-marks, the ruddy stains. The chains around Aeron's thin, bruise-blackened wrists. The monster rested the lamp on the dirt-covered floor and knelt before Aeron so their faces were at the same level. "Aren't you going to ask me what it is?"

The monster was so close that his breath ghosted over Aeron, the scent tart but earthy, like the wine his mother drank on special occasions. The wine he was never permitted to taste. The wine she'd poured over his whipped skin once, just to see how it would burn.

The monster shifted back a little. "Ah, well," he said. "I suppose you're not used to asking questions, are you, Aeron?"

Aeron did not dare to breathe, let alone answer. A good thing, then, that the monster so loved to speak. But then, all monsters did, in Aeron's experience. His mother liked to speak most of all.

"Your mother is dead," said the monster.

Aeron couldn't help but look up into the burning light, into the monster's pale, thin, lovely face. Even the gold that filled the room from the lamp wasn't enough to bring colour to the monster's cheeks.

"Killed by the High Lord of Spring," said the monster, smacking his lips as though the words themselves were as delicious as the wine that lingered on his breath.

"What?" Aeron asked, his voice husky from misuse. It had been weeks since his mother's last visit, weeks since he'd last spoken. Weeks since she'd pressed hot iron into his foot until his flesh hissed in the silence, in the quiet space left where he once would have screamed, but now no longer bothered.

The monster's grin was vulpine as he continued. "As it turns out, wearing a pretty mask for half a century didn't sit well with the beast. Then there was the whole affair with his human wretch—but no matter. The deed is done, your mother is dead, and all that is left now is to determine what to do with you …"

Aeron flinched as the monster neared him once more. The heat seeping from the body near him was unnatural here, in this room, where only his mother had tread before. Even the guard that delivered his food used a slot in the door to do it, terrified to so much as look upon him.

"Ask me what I'm going to do with you, boy," said the monster. "Ask me what becomes of the son of the High Queen of Prythian when his mother is rotting in death and no one knows or cares that he even breathes."

Aeron did not speak, because he did not know. He couldn't imagine that it would be worse than his mother's games were—than they had been, until she had died. Part of Aeron wished the High Lord of Spring had killed him, too, if only to free him as he took his mother.

"Speak, boy!" commanded the monster. It sounded as though he had stood and was looming above Aeron, but the boy made no move to look up and confirm this hypothesis.

Swallowing his fear down thickly and resigning himself to this new reality, the boy asked, "What are you going to do with me?"

"How good of you to ask," said the monster, his voice like velvet once more. "And the answer is: Whatever the hell I want."

Aeron dared to look up at the monster once more, leering and looming above him like a spectre.

"That's right." The monster reached forward, tracing his hand over Aeron's wing where it hung useless and limp at his back. "You're not the queen's secret weapon anymore, lad. You're just the whore's bastard, and not even your father cares enough to scrape the mess of you off this floor. Everyone is gone, running off to their happily ever afters … but you and I, we're going to have so. Much. Fun."

Aeron didn't let himself cry. There was no use in it—all it would do was expose him for what he was. Weak. Cowardly.

The monster dropped a dry, hot kiss on Aeron's forehead and swept out of the room. His ash-grey cloak whipped behind him, barely avoiding being caught in the door as he slammed it shut.

—

Now …

Hope clicked the bedroom door shut behind her, letting out a deep breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. The hall was lit with dim lights every few meters, though Hope hardly needed them; she knew the halls of this manor better than the veins and arteries that ran through her own body, knew each crevice better than the folds of her own skin.

Hope passed the art that lined the walls, all her father's work. She ran a finger over a particular piece as she passed it, feeling the rough hatching of paint where her father had tried to capture the texture of the woollen clouds that threaded through a bright blue sky. In the painting, a winged figure was hovering off to the left, an odd-shaped mess of intertwined limbs with a ribbon of red hair, the same shade as her own, flying somewhere within it. The piece had originally been titled On Swift Wings, but someone had come along and placed a sticky note over the ostentatious plaque Hope's father had fixed beneath the piece, a note which now declared it Overprotective Fatherhood: A Retrospective.

Many of the titles under the paintings around the house changed regularly, as had been custom since Hope's childhood; she often wondered if her father kept putting the plaques up just so there was something there to stick notes on. For the renaming of this particular piece, Hope's money was on Josie, the wittiest of her sisters.

It took some time for Hope to decide to move on; it was the dead of the night, after all, and she had no pressing place to be. The moon tugged at her as it always did, as it had when she'd woken in her bed to find its light clawing at her like fingers through the part in her bedroom curtains. Her husband must have known it would call to her, because he had anchored her to the bed with an arm over her chest; she'd extricated herself easily, ignoring his feeble protests. He understood her need to stroll under the full moon, of course. It was in her blood. He himself had a fondness for starlight, but he'd been out drinking with her uncles later than expected—celebrating the one-year anniversary since the bachelor party they'd held for him—and wasn't likely to rise until at least six in the am, which was rather late for him. She'd have to tease him about it later.

Hope made her way down the staircase, her ears pricked for the slightest noise, as always. It was the middle of the school term, so the Armoury was packed full of children, all in the dorm rooms. An older room of girls—four teenagers in total—were up chatting, and Hope could hear their giggles from two floors down. As a responsible adult—not to mention one of their teachers—she should have gone up to scold them. But there was something in their tone, discussing boys and the first flush of love, that made her leave them be. It wasn't so long ago that she had held similar discussion with her sisters in this very house, and how important that had truly turned out to be …

The door to the kitchen yawned open for her at the slightest touch, causing her to raise an eyebrow. It wasn't wise to leave the doors unlocked—the younger children liked to raid the pantry—so she had to assume there was a reason for the oversight—

A reason that revealed itself to be her youngest uncle, asleep on the floor by the refrigerator. He didn't smell too badly of alcohol—Caroline would kill him if he returned to the Armoury too drunk—but it had apparently been just enough to send him off to sleep right there, a whole floor away from his perfectly comfortable bed.

Stepping over him, Hope found herself at the back door, and slipped out.

She turned her face immediately up at the moon, not looking back at the door as she locked it, pocketing the key. She felt the wards click back into place even as she heard the deadlock drive home. Satisfied that the school was secure, Hope continued on her way.

Most of the terrain surrounding the Armoury consisted of open grass plains, perfect for a stroll under the full moon. Woodland edged in on one side of the property, sparse where it crossed their border, thicker on the other side. Hope had never met whoever owned the land beyond the fence, but she assumed that they didn't mind her walking through it. She had been since she was eight years old, after all.

Hope stepped through the fence, passing through the wards around the property. There was a tang to the magic that permeated the Armory, something tangible that Hope never quite knew unless she was coming or going, crossing the threshold from within to without, feeling the difference for herself. Her sisters were better at sensing these things—as Gemini, concealment spells and protection charms were a part of their bloodline's specialty, however much they'd missed out on the education given that the rest of their bloodline was dead. Or, in the case of Valerie, undead.

Moving deeper into the woods, Hope pulled her jacket closer to her—it was thick, lined with wool, and very unfashionable, to the degree that she could feel her Aunt Rebekah's indignation. Which was a feat in itself, as the woman was all the way in New Orleans, likely gazing up at the same moon as she whiled the night away on Bourbon Street.

Another thing Rebekah would've scowled at was Hope's bare feet, which she proceeded to use to clamber up a crab apple tree. Her father theorised that there had been an orchard here, at some point, and here and there one could make out fruit trees aligned like stars in a shifting sky, so often cut apart from one another by invaders of oak and maple. Hope loved the overgrown orchard, had loved it since she was a child that had to be helped onto even the lower branches.

Now, she climbed boldly, as a matter of instinct, her bare feet gripping the wood and propelling her up until she was as high as she could safely go. Resting in the cradle between a sturdy, upturned branch and the trunk itself, Hope finally sat back, relaxed, and fixed her gaze on the moon, letting her bare feet drag through the crisp night air.

It was a tradition, Hope's father had always told her when she was younger. "Wolves never wear shoes on the full moon," he'd confided in her one night as they'd sat in this same place, gazed up at this same moon. "Not even the little ones."

Hope knew it was foolish, knew that her father wasn't even in the house—he was in New Orleans, with her fashionably disapproving aunt and all the bourbon he could drink—but somehow she knew that wherever he was, he wasn't wearing shoes, either. Hope wasn't one to break family tradition.

Predictably—but still, regrettably—the moon dipped in the sky, tiring of the view of the Virginia plains and all that laid beyond it. Hope pulled herself away from the serenity of its call, the intimacy between a wolf and her moon. She climbed down the tree, landing lightly on her feet in the dewy grass.

Now that she had torn her gaze from the moon, Hope noted that she did feel tired, after all. She'd be glad to be out of the cold and into the warmth of her bed, of her husband's embrace. There was a comfort that came with the passing of the full moon, the ebb of her ill tempers, the fire in her blood that called for the kill that came with being a wolf.

Perhaps she wouldn't waste this good mood on sleep, she pondered. Perhaps she'd wake her husband up instead.

Hope was barely a step away from the fence, busy with the wicked schemes running through her head, when everything went black.

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