1. Moonwhispers

They came in the night, more rapid and numerous than expected. Chonib felt it was only yesterday that someone named Otto slithered forward and was unsatisfied about his tiny territory. He turned out to be very unsatisfied.

She thought they had time. That many villages still separated them and the Empire of Otto, like a shield, but all those settlements had already been swallowed by the murderous snakes.

And yes, swallowed was the right word.

Otto’s army raged through her village now. Homes fell, splintered or choked to dust, and not all villagers fled in time. Piles of wood were burned. The flames mixed with the faint moonlight and revealed the terrifying faces of their attackers.

The male villagers grabbed weapons and tried to push back the deadly flood. A herd of scared cows, goats and camels, however, was nothing but ripe for slaughter.

If Otto could even attack here … then his empire might occupy half the world soon!

Chonib, a brown bear, saw the events unfold from her balcony. She sat there and painted, seemingly deaf to the screams and the destruction. Her entire village had been flattened before the moon could even change positions in the sky. Any survivors shivered in the dark, close to each other for warmth and support.

Otto looked up, eyeing the moon himself. Tonight she was half full, sparkling but not perfectly white. He followed the crescent dot in the sky for a while, then smiled with satisfaction, as if he’d asked the moon a question and received an answer.

“You are fortunate,” the gigantic viper hissed. “The moon asks for forgiveness this night. You now belong to the Empire of Otto. Rebuild your city and pay me tribute every month, and you will enjoy—”

Suddenly Otto looked to the side and up. He noticed Chonib for the first time, as she calmly continued painting.

“Come down! At once!” he screamed. “Or I will cut your head off!”

Chonib pretended not to hear. The painting was almost done, and it was shaping up to be one of her best. Her bear paws danced over the canvas as she held multiple brushes between her fingers.

Otto slithered into her home, up the stairs, to the balcony. His weight tested the strength of the wooden supports and sent gravel to the floor. He spread his fangs and prepared for a venomous bite into Chonib’s side.

The entire world turned dark. Not figuratively. Not Chonib’s world. The actual world.

Otto froze.

Chonib placed her final brush strokes and sighed with satisfaction.

“I see you have much to learn about Moonreading,” she spoke calmly.

And indeed, after waiting a few seconds, the moon left her hiding place and illuminated the world once more. The dense clouds that covered her moved on.

Otto stared at the painting. Chonib had painted the moon perfectly, exactly as she looked this night, each detail and color immaculate.

His guards reached the balcony too, certain this beautiful bear had some enchanted or bewitched him. Why else wasn’t she dead yet?

Otto hissed for them to keep their distance.

“Is that so, pretty lady? What else does the moon say tonight?”

Chonib locked eyes with Otto for the first time. Fiery eyes. Poisonous eyes. No wonder his Empire grew rapidly. She had to calm herself and gather all her strength to not cower before his gaze.

“That you must accept me, Chonib Halfmoon, as your advisor,” she said with a faint smile.

Otto circled her. He could grab her and choke her at any time, at any sound or word he didn’t like.

“You’re making this up,” he growled.

Chonib shook her head. She used the other end of her brush to point at five small freckles on the moon.

“This one clearly states that your empire is growing rapidly and you need my help. This one clearly states that Moonreading will be essential to your success. And if you turn these spots into letters, you get my name.”

She stood and gathered even more strength for what she was about to say.

“I don’t want to work for you, Otto. You just burned my village to the ground. But the Moon tells me I must.”

It was a guess. The Moon did not say any of this. She did say that Otto cared about power and war, but also honor and duty and art. By pretending to do this against her own wishes, she hoped he would accept. It was all according to her own plan, of course, so she could—

Her gamble paid off. Otto nodded and smiled.

“From now on, Chonib is my adviser and my Highest Moonreader,” he declared loudly. “She has my protection and belongs to the royal household now.”

They led her away from her village. Snake guards pushed her into a desert sled pulled by camels. Otto himself traveled in a far more luxurious sled, accompanied by his three sons. The probably discussed how to terrorize the next handful of villages.

Had she made the right choice? She shivered and closed her eyes. Too late to backtrack now. In a few hours, Otto’s palace would be her new home—could it ever feel like a home? It felt like visiting a prison cell and she already longed for her cozy balcony again. Her first inquiry would be to buy an endless supply of brushes and paint to—

An explosion.

The wreckage of Otto’s vehicle flew into Chonib’s sled. Dust clouds hid the rising sun and turned the yellow desert into a grey blur. Guards yelled for Otto, extinguished fires, and searched for any remains.

Chonib looked on from a distance. The Moon hadn’t told her any of this! She told her that Otto would protect her for a while! Was she a far worse Moonreader than she thought? Had she—

The dust clouds finally evaporated into a clear blue sky. Otto’s sled was completely destroyed. Both him and his sons were nowhere to be found, but Chonib also couldn’t spot any dead bodies.

They couldn’t keep searching and waiting. Whoever caused the attack could still be close, and so they raced back to the palace in confusion and haste.

Once there, nobody knew what to do with Chonib. In the end, she was placed on a pillow in the throne room and commanded to stay there and await further commands.

As the day continued, more and more animals entered the room with her. In all their conversations, one whisper kept floating to her ears.

Otto is dead.

“Are you sure?” Chonib then asked, but nobody found her worthy of a reply.

Until the throne room was flooded with animals and Chonib pushed against the wall to make space. Everyone formed a guard of honor for a new visitor: a prince. A son of Otto.

He zigzagged inside. His tough snake skin revealed large wounds and exhaustion. His eyes were red and irritated from crying.

“Not to worry,” he said gruffly. “Reliable sources have confirmed that our previous leader is no more. That means that I, Aratto, have become the new leader. The Empire of Otto remains strong as always!”

Then two more visitors appeared: the other two princes. Not as wounded and exhausted, but for angrier. The three princes barely differed in age, size or power, for they were triplets. They even wore the same clothing as all sultans: a long white cloth wrapped around their head as if an oversized onion grew there.

“Nonsense!” Britto screamed. “All of us are the same age!”

Aratto had already positioned himself on the throne. Because this empire was ruled by snakes, this was not a chair but a nest covered in leaves and twigs.

“I left mother’s womb first. I am oldest. Ask any of the witnesses.”

Those witnesses already stepped forward, as if it was rehearsed, but Crotto pushed them back. “Otto has never written down who should succeed him. He never had time for it.”

Arrato screamed in frustration. “And so we follow the same rules that all the other empires follow. The eldest son follows his father.”

Bitto leapt forward, his mouth wide open. Aratto barely dodged the attack. The brothers twisted around each other, grabbing and choking with their immense bodies, but never fully incapacitating the other.

Crotto cursed both of them, standing in the middle of the throne room. “Childish nonsense! Otto is dead! The last thing we want is more chaos and more—”

Aratto reached a favorable position and bit his brother. Bitto whined and left the fight, slithering to a dark corner of the room. Crotto’s eyes narrowed, his body ready to enter the fight now.

“We share the empire. Each son gets one third,” Crotto tried.

“Aratto attacks his own family members,” Bitto said. “Jail him and make me your leader!”

“I am the leader, following all the rules that everyone knows,” Aratto said. “And I command the army to kill my brothers, the traitors!”

Everyone turned around to leave the room at once. The guards that were left behind looked at each other, shuffling in place. After nervous whispers and exchanged glances, they sided with Aratto and moved to seize the other princes.

Chonib was the only witness to what followed.

Once Aratto notice, he stuck out his lengthy tongue and pointed at her. “Give … give her to the bears or something, as … a gift from their new leader, to use as they wish.”

“Excuse me?”

Otto had promised to protect her. But Otto was no more.

As tears streamed down her face, snake skin closed around her like handcuffs that fit her entire body. She lacked the power to fight back as they dragged her from the room. No, she made the wrong choice, this would never be her home—

Once outside, they bumped into a very large snake who was very angry. He instantly pulled Chonib out of her snake chains and pushed her to a safe place.

“I will kill the traitor who spread the rumor that I was dead,” Otto yelled.

That wasn’t even his most shocking statement, for he followed it up with:

“From now on, all our laws and rules are gone, including who gets the throne if I die. Forget everything. From this day forward, I will invent completely new rules for our empire.”