The Song That Moves the Sun

by Anna Bright

Genres: YA Contemporary; YA Romance

Synopsis

This sweeping YA fantasy romance full of star-crossed love, complex female friendship, and astrological magic is perfect for fans of Laini Taylor, Alexandra Bracken, and V.E. Schwab. From the acclaimed author of The Beholder.

Best friends Rora and Claudia have never felt more like their lives are spiraling out of control. And when they meet Major and Amir—two boys from one of the secret cities of the spheres, ruled by the magic of the astrological signs—they discover they’re not alone. There is a disruption in the harmony between the spheres, and its chaos is spreading.

To find the source of the disharmony, Rora and Claudia will embark on a whirlwind journey of secrets, romance, and powerful truths—about themselves, each other, and two long-ago explorers named Dante and Beatrice, who were among the first to chart this course toward the stars.

Inspired partly by the classic works of Dante Alighieri, this gorgeous stand-alone contemporary fantasy will captivate readers of Lore and Star Daughter.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Release date: June 28, 2022

Publisher: HarperCollins

Print pages: 464

Sample

1287

WE BEGIN AT the center.

In June of 1287, Dante Alighieri would have sworn the Republic of Florence was the center of the universe. It was the crown jewel of Toscana, a bright carnelian bead threaded on the River Arno, the city that would one day be the beating heart of the rebirth that would change all of Europe. It had raised him on gossip, nurtured him from a tender age on rivalry and intrigue.

But Dante saw clearly that night the fate that awaited him amid Florence’s high stone towers and warring families, and his heart quailed.

He was nothing special among the family of Gemma, his affianced bride. Her cousins and brothers and uncles—the Donati men—were brawlers, fighting men who earned their coin as mercenaries.

In their household, he would be nobody.

Gemma Donati had been his father’s choice following a shrewd evaluation of potential brides from the city’s great houses. Dante had circled Florence alongside the elder Alighieri, feeling as though he were winding through the circles of hell.

And here was its lowest point: just outside Arezzo, some two days’ journey from Florence. The city was in flames.

The warring factions that dominated Toscana and its neighboring states professed devotion to one mother Church. But theirs was a bloody, vicious sibling rivalry, with each insisting it was her favorite child and adherents switching sides over the years. Such a change in loyalties was the source of the coup in Arezzo, where the Donati men had been summoned to aid the besieged members of their faction. And they had brought Dante with them.

Great crowds of soldiers jostled and shoved in the dark as they made ready outside Arezzo’s walls. Torchlight gleamed on steel plating and leather armor, on the chestnut flanks of their mounts. The air was full of the singing of swords and the stamping and snorting of horses, of the shouts of the fighters. Of the stink of flame and spilled blood.

Dante’s head swam with it all: with the noise and the light and the salt-smell of bodily humors.

He had trudged here with Gemma’s male relatives to battle alongside them. To prove himself one of them, however reluctantly.

But Dante was not a fighting man. He would never be one of them. He would only humiliate himself if he tried.

Heart full of fear and resentment, he turned his eyes away from the besieged city to a dark forest at its edge. It was dark as a dream, dark enough to hide him. It called to him. Dante ran.

Rora₁

I AM AFRAID of thirty-one things.

I counted once, after that night a few weeks ago. The list runs through my mind as I wash my hands again and again in the Millers’ bathroom.

Steam rises up from the basin of the sink. My hands are bright red. I snap off the faucet and reach for the towel to dry them off, then stop, arrested by nerves.

I wash my hands a fourth time.

Mr. Miller’s been upstairs since he got home at half past three, looking glassy-eyed and feverish. I spent the next few hours spraying and wiping down doorknobs and light switches while Luke and Mia finished their homework and ate the pasta I’d fixed.

“Rora?” Mrs. Miller’s voice follows me as I slip down the front hall toward the door. “I’m sorry again about canceling the trip. I can still pay you for the days you were going to be with us.” She grimaces, her round, rosy face sympathetic. Mrs. Miller is an overworked HR rep at the hospital where my dad works as a custodian; she really needed this vacation. Luke and Mia had been excited, too.

I feel bad they’re missing their trip. I feel worse to lose the pay for going with them. But pride won’t let me take the money for nothing.

“Thanks, but it’s okay.” I slide my arms into my jacket. “Text me when you want to get back on our regular schedule after the holidays? I’ll come pick up my stuff soon,” I add, eyeing the suitcase I brought over after school. It was supposed to be waiting for me here after the show, all packed and ready for us to leave in the morning; I can’t take it with me now.

“Sure, hon,” she reassures me, glancing out the front window and grimacing. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call you a—”

“No, thanks,” I cut her off. I’m being rude; I can’t help it. “Good night.”

I dart outside and lock the front door behind me, fighting the urge to go wash my hands again. Pushing the thought aside, I hurry up the sidewalk toward Union Station.

The stars overhead are bright in the cold sky despite the light pollution. I can see my breath. It’s December, two weeks till Christmas.

On my way, I text Claudia.

Be safe <3, she replies immediately.

I catch the Red Line below Union Station, pick a seat by the train window, draw my knees up to my chest around my backpack. I let my eyes sink closed to the sound of Jude 

London singing through my earbuds.

I was surprised at how prominently cleaning products featured in my litany of fears. I’m afraid of accidentally spraying them near people’s food in the kitchen. Of cleaning the bathroom and still having them on my hands if I touch my eyes later. It’s why I was still washing my hands long after I’d stashed the bleach bottle.

The Metro is always crowded during rush hour, people crammed into seats with laptop bags and purses, lining the aisles with suitcases and briefcases. I always wonder if everyone else is counting as they inhale and exhale, forcing their focus on their books or the music in their ears. If they’re trying as hard as I am not to feel the crush of bodies behind and beside and in front of them, trying not to smell the perfume and body odor and weed and nicotine and coffee whose scents press against their noses from clothes and mouths all around, pervasive as the list of fears that runs in circles through my mind like the trains winding in endless loops through the city.

Of missing my Metro stop.

Of losing my phone. My wallet. My keys, especially when I have Luke and Mia.

Of leaving the Millers’ house unlocked and getting fired. Of driving, even in their beat-up nanny van.

The anxiety has always been with me—a too-tight scarf around my neck, a too-warm sweater clinging to my skin.

But since that night—the one I try not to think about—the fear feels close and tight and thick enough to choke me.

The ancient train rattles my teeth in my jaw, but the window is cool against my cheek. In the quiet—but not empty, never empty—car, my neck and shoulders start to unknot.

It’s the holidays; we ought to be full of comfort and joy. But mostly, we’re all on edge.

The news is strange these days. For the last several weeks, sea levels have been falling. Mountains have shrunk by full inches. Week before last, a sinkhole ate half a small town in the Pacific Northwest. And if the weather is weird, people’s behavior is even weirder. It’s like Earth’s somehow tilted on its axis, and we’re all clinging to its surface by our fingernails.

I pull out my phone to text my dad that the trip is off. There’s already a message from him on my screen. All set to head out of town? Have fun tonight, sweetheart.

Quickly, I tap out the start of a reply. Thanks, Dad.

My parents never stop working. But if my anxiety’s always in endless supply, it feels like there’s never enough of anything else. Money. Energy. Time.

Mom and Dad are always exhausted. And worrying about me just makes everything harder.

Laughter bursts out across the car and I nearly drop my phone. The group of boys must be headed out for the night, maybe to 14th Street or Georgetown. It’s below thirty out, but one of them wears a pair of Nantucket red shorts and loafers with no socks. I wonder if his feet are cold.

Claudia

loathes preppy style. But they seem loose and comfortable, with their shaggy hair and shirts embroidered with whales or pigs.

I wear my leather jacket—hunted down over months at thrift stores—like armor. But they don’t seem to need any.

The five of them look like an indestructible circle beneath the fluorescent train lights. Or like they think they’re indestructible. I wonder if it’s the same thing. Either way, I envy them. Hands shaking, I stick my phone back in my pocket.

Other fears that live beneath my skin, beneath the beds of my nails, that wake me up at night in a sweat, that strike my heart like a bolt of lightning:

Of being watched through my laptop camera.

Of getting germs in people’s food when I cook. Of getting acne medication in my eyes.

Of being mugged, or raped, or murdered.

Of leaving the oven on, or my flat iron.

Of cheating on a boyfriend someday. Of being cheated on.

Of finding my drink spiked with alcohol, or something worse.

Of being called on at school when I don’t know an answer. Of being called on, period.

Of something happening to Claudia. Or to my parents, or the Miller kids.

Of cancer, of heart attacks.

Of roaches. Of bedbugs. Of lice. Of rats. Of mold.

Of someone breaking into my parents’ apartment. Of someone seeing the place where we live and judging us for how it looks.

Thirty-one things. One for every day of the month.

Some of my fears are colossal. Some are small, burrowing anxieties. But I feel them all. They get heavier every day.

Summer is coming! my horoscope promised this morning. Claudia always goes on about confirmation bias and how vague the predictions are, but I say vague guidance is better than none at all. Today, though, I wanted to agree with her.

Maybe summer’s coming. But it’s been gray here for months.

I push it all aside as I change trains in Chinatown, turning the volume up when the track changes—“An Early Cold,” my favorite Ad Astra song. I let Jude London’s voice and the impatient snare drum hurry me downstairs to catch the Green Line, the song leaping and diving as my train races through the tunnel. They’re my favorite band for exactly this reason.

I try to imagine what it will feel like to finally see them at the 9:30 Club tonight.

But it’s hard. It’s hard to sit on the Metro and calculate, minute by minute, the risk I take just by being female and alone after dark.

Because one of my fears has already come true. And everything—the night around me, my very breath in my own ears—sounds different now.