Nocturnes, p.1
Eagleminder: Kinlear's POV, page 1
PRAISE FOR LINDSAY CUMMINGS
Had me hooked from the very first pages.
— SARAH J. MAAS
Epic, mesmerizing and heart-stopping, you'll be left breathless and wanting more.
— DANIELLE PAIGE
A dark, twisting tale with an incredible cast of characters immersed in a richly detailed world I couldn't get enough of.
— KAYLYNN FLANDERS
Unique world-building, a bold heroine with a heartbreaking past, and awe-inspiring magic that simply cannot be caged.
— ANDREA STEWART
Favourite fantasy read of 2025!
— IOLA, NETGALLEY REVIEWER
I couldn’t put it down. I devoured the entire book in just two days! And the ending? I am still not over it. I need the next book immediately!
— MARTA G. NETGALLEY REVIEWER
I absolutely adored the bond between Six and Ezer, and the strength that this brings them both is just beautiful.
— REBECCA T. NETGALLEY REVIEWER
Ravenminder is a dark, romantic fantasy that had me completely gagged. Our FMC is fierce, flawed, and unforgettable. The writing is vivid, the pacing was perfect, and the plot had me hooked all the way to the end.
— NETGALLEY REVIEWER
Plot twist galore … perfect for fans of Sarah J Maas, George R. R. Martin and Raven Kennedy.
— MEGAN C. NETGALLEY REVIEWER
I won’t lie, the ending completely shocked me. a full ‘stare at the wall with my jaw wide open’ moment, and i’m still not over it. I mean, W H A T.
— PAULINA S. NETGALLEY REVIEWER
The ending blows the whole thing wide open, with elements I really did not see coming.
— LENS AND PAGES, GOODREADS
The standout…is the heroine. She is sharp-tongued, scarred, and refreshingly unlike the flawless beauties often found in the genre. Her wit and resilience make her the true force of the novel, and she quickly becomes the character you root for.
— THE BOOKISH DAMSEL, GOODREADS
Chapter header sketches done by Agata Zebrowska.
Cover artwork done by Melissa Baudin.
Copyright © 2025 by Lindsay Cummings
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Lindsay Cummings asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Without limiting the author’s and publisher’s exclusive rights, any unauthorised use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is expressly prohibited. Lindsay Cummings also exercises their rights under Article 4(3) of the Digital Single Market Directive 2019/790 and expressly reserve this publication from the text and data mining exception.
CONTENTS
Dedication
Pronunciation Guide
dear reader
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Dear reader,
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by lindsay cummings
DEDICATION
For the ones who don’t believe in themselves.
It’s time you wake up and SEE.
(And to the Raven Girls, for believing in this series. And as always, to my dad, Don Cummings. Because writing is our thing.)
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
Alaris: Uh-lah-riss
Arawn Laroux: Uh-ron Luh-roo
Aristra: Uh-riss-truh
Arivahda: Ah-rih-vah-duh
Augaurde: Aw-guard
Avane: Ay-vein
Dhysis: Die-sis
Draybor Laroux: Dray-bore Luh-roo
Erath: Air-ath
Ervos: Urr-vohs
Ezer: Ay-zurr
Indriya: In-dree-yuh
Izill: Ih-zill
Kinlear Laroux: Kin-leer Luh-roo
Lordach: Lore-dack
Odaeis: Oh-day-iss
Raphon-:Ruh-fawn
Soraya: Sir-eye-uh
Touvre: Too-vruh
Vivorr: Vee-vore
Wrenwyn: Ren-win
Zey: Zay
DEAR READER:
Initially, EAGLEMINDER was only supposed to be a few thousand words meant to tide readers over until the real book 2. But as I dove into Kinlear’s mind... I couldn’t pull myself away. I wrote nearly every page of this POV in the span of just four days. It kept growing, and growing, and every time I sat down to add more, my heart was racing... because I wasn’t just writing Kinlear’s pain on the page.
I was writing my own.
I wrote my debut novel when I was 18 years old, after being diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I missed out on music college, stayed home with my parents... and quickly discovered that writing wasn’t just a hobby anymore. It was a lifeline, something I could still do from the couch or the bed as my own body waged war against me. Writing gave me a reason to keep going on the days when living felt a bit like dying...and I wasn’t sure if I would ever see the light of day again.
Spoiler alert: I did.
I fell in love during those years of illness. I found a passion and a career, not in spite of the hard times, but because of them. I uncovered the deepest, darkest parts of myself and eventually gathered the mental strength to face them. And while my own health has resolved since those initial CFS days (minus the flareups that love to haunt me at random, as all chronic illness girlies know), writing Kinlear’s POV took me back to those first years when everything in my life changed.
It is my hope that I do Kinlear’s story justice, because his struggle is my struggle. I hope it echoes the internal truths of so many others whose bodies just won’t listen...but whose minds are strong, and beautiful, and uniquely created to do all that they were born to do in this life.
…even if they don’t believe it just yet.
I hope you find a bit of healing in this POV. I hope you enjoy Kinlear’s journey, however dark it may be, and if you’re on Team Arawn...I hope you’ll find it in your heart to give Kinlear a second chance. My poor, tortured prince deserves it.
Lindsay Cummings
THE FIVE PILLARED GODS
Aristra- God of Realm
Avane- God of Wind
Dhysis- God of The Ehver
Odaeis- God of Water
Vivorr- God of Fire
1
He died just before he was born.
One moment, he was in a space of warmth and comfort. A place where he was not alone, for there was another just like him.
A second prince.
A twin.
At first, Kinlear was there, tangled up beside his brother, all limbs and life just waiting to spring forth, and the next...
He fell.
Into silence, into a sea that was dark and depthless. There was no ship to save him, no raft to help him stay afloat as he sank into the inky black. He couldn’t tell which way was up, which way was down. It was absent of space and time, this place that was to be his beginning.
Or, perhaps, his end.
At least there was no pain.
Only the sensation of barreling towards something bigger than himself.
Eventually, he stopped falling, and there in the darkness, he hovered...bathed in the light of a pair of magnificent golden gates. They were glorious. So large, he couldn’t take them all in with a single glance. Their color was so vibrantly gold, he ached to look upon them.
There were others there.
Souls, he sensed, just like him.
They had no age in this space, and nor did he. Together, they simply were, as they bobbed like little lights in the current of the abyss. Every so often, the others shimmered, and their edges were filled with images Kinlear knew to be memories.
The beautiful ache of a desperate first kiss.
The sound of a wailing baby.
A new mother’s midnight song.
He could hear the sigh of a crisp fall wind, see the splendor of orange and red leaves dancing towards a soft forest floor. He saw children playing in white pillows of snow, and lovers embracing at the edge of a glittering emerald sea...
He saw heartbreak and healing and the soft, final moments of a life before death.
They weren’t his memories, for he had none.
But he wanted them.
He wanted them so much it hurt, and as the light of the gates shone upon him, and he grew closer to the front of the line.
Kinlear cried out for help.
“I want to go back!” he pleaded, a desperate prayer from deep within. A line, cast out to anyone who might be there to pull him back to the surface again. “I’m not ready to go to the other side!”
There was an insistent tug that came from inside him, deep where a beating heart should have been, that writhed in the light of those gates.
“No!” he screamed. “I don’t want to go. I don’t want it all to end, I don’t want to die...before I ever get to live.”
He sent up a beautiful prayer, honest and true.
But no one heard him.
He screamed his defiance to the dark, until the desperation became fury. Until he felt like a wild animal howling into the abyss. He screamed until his soul felt ragged, as he begged for someone, anyone, to hear him.
He’d just reached the front of the line, where he saw his name scribbled in glistening blood, at the top of an ancient, long list. He’d just felt himself being pulled towards it...
When suddenly, a sound cut through the darkness like a blade.
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
The sound of something carried on two dark wings.
Help! He begged it. Come and carry me away!
Something flickered in the distance. Wings and paws spun of shadow...a strange beast soaring towards him. Something that could not possibly belong here, for it felt other every bit as much as he did.
But he was not afraid.
A voice broke through the darkness.
“Kinlear.”
It was so soft, he could barely hear it.
“Choose now, before it’s too late.”
He wanted to.
Oh, how he longed to choose. He turned towards the beast, reached for it with everything he had. He stretched and he screamed...until he saw the hooded figure upon its back. In its hand was held a spear of darkness.
And that spear came spiraling towards him, too fast to escape.
It struck him in his chest.
A gasp of breath, a pinch of pain...
And then something bold, something bright, something different, suddenly grabbed him from behind. The shadow-spear broke free as he was torn away from it.
And pulled, kicking and screaming, into the first breath of his miserable mortal life.
2
He was born second.
A late and most unwelcome arrival, for the King and Queen of Lordach weren’t sure what to do with a spare. And if Kinlear was the second-born, the shuddering shadow...
Then Arawn was the sun, powerful and bright.
“Is he here, Mother?” Kinlear asked now.
He was only five, small and thin, staring up at the Queen of Lordach as she sighed and sat down once more on the edge of his four-post bed. She had hair like Arawn, like strands of woven snow. Kinlear looked more like his father...who he hadn’t seen in days.
The king preferred to spend his time with Arawn when he returned from the battlefield. In fact, if he really thought about it...Kinlear couldn’t remember a single night that his father had tucked him in.
“Your brother is in his bed, Kinlear,” the queen said now. “Just across the hall, as he always is. And probably already asleep, as you should be.”
She narrowed her eyes at him in warning.
“I’m not talking about Arawn,” Kinlear said, and shook his head. His dark curls fell into his eyes, and she brushed them away with a swipe of her ringed fingers, a tsk of her tongue. He pulled the blankets up to his chin and shivered. “I’m talking about the monster.”
Her eyes narrowed even more.
This time, in utter exasperation. “Kinlear Laroux. You’ve been warned twice today about telling lies. Once more, and it’s penance you’ll pay.”
She often gave him three chances.
If she didn’t, he would have been covered from head to toe in penance marks.
Not Arawn.
Never Arawn, who was born pious from his very first cry.
“It’s not a lie,” Kinlear said, eyes wide. “It’s always there in the dark place, waiting for me. It could even be here. Right. Now.” He glanced at the floorboards, where the shadows were thick beneath his bed. Where a claw could so easily reach him. He shifted deeper beneath his covers as the queen sighed yet again.
She didn’t believe him.
She never believed him.
“There are no monsters here,” she said.
He crossed his small arms and leveled his gaze on her. “Prove it.”
“Your challenging nature doesn’t come from me,” she said, raising a pale brow. But she stood, and went to the enormous window across the room, where she pulled the heavy velvet curtains open. It was just enough to send a beam of cool wardlight into the room. It bounded off the white rhinestones on her nightgown, as if it were made of tiny stars.
“There will never be monsters inside the Citadel, Little Prince. Not while we live protected by the power of the Five.” A snap of fabric, and the curtains were closed once more. “Sleep. And no more speaking of this, or it’s penance you’ll pay.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead, her smell sweet as roses. “You must always remember. A Sacred does not tell lies.”
She left him alone, trembling in the darkness.
He fought to stay awake as long as he could. Beyond his window, the world rumbled with the whisper of war. Somewhere out there, his father led a sea of Sacred and nomages in the battle against the Acolyte.
Somewhere out there, shadow monsters with wings and talons tore apart the sky. It was enough to frighten any child.
But it was the monster waiting only for Kinlear – the one inside his mind – that even the strongest of Sacred Knights would have feared.
3
In sleep, he visited a dark and dying wood.
It was a cold place, as everywhere in the north. But while the Thornwell beyond the Citadel was snow-kissed and Sacred-white, this forest was utterly barren. It was a place that felt like it was already dead, and it hid his monster within.
“Wake up,” Kinlear whispered.
His breath formed before him in a cloud as he found himself, barefoot and shivering, on the edge of the trees. It was the same place he always began these dreams. His silk pajamas had been replaced by a dark and tattered cloak, a far cry from the Sacred whites his mother’s servants always dressed him in.
“Wake up,” Kinlear tried again. “Wake up-wake up-wake up.”
The mantra never worked.
But he tried it anyways, just as he had last night. And all the others before.
Behind him was only darkness. A world of depthless, inky black, where a boy of his age and stature would never dare go.
So, into the forest he went.
There were no leaves on this forest floor. Instead, the ground was made of churned up dirt, like a freshly dug grave. It was silent and cold on his bare toes as he wove through the trees, following the only sense of direction he knew.
North.
He felt it, each time he entered this wood.
If he just went north...if he just made it to the other side...
The monster would release him from the hunt.
He felt the aspen trees watching him as he walked. They stood over him, pale as clean-picked bones, and rattled as a cold wind sighed past their skeletal branches.
“Wake up,” Kinlear whispered again.
He never knew just when the monster would strike. But he was certain, the second he’d entered these woods...the hunt had already begun.
He wouldn’t make it easy, at least.
For here, in his dreams, he was fast and strong. Whatever illness he’d been born with could not follow him here, so he was able to run the way other children could. He was able to breathe without feeling like his lungs were full of glass.
