Page 15 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Riven

Later in the night, a blue-haired nymph rocks up and down on Riven’s body, her stunning green eyes ablaze. Yet Riven finds his mind drifting back to the girl in the dungeon. Melody. The way her eyes shone when he found her in the woods. The way her skin felt when he touched her.

The nymph squeezes her thighs tighter against his hips as she climaxes before she collapses on top of him. When Riven looks up, he spots Caryan walking past through the vast hall where they usually spend their evenings together, drinking and fucking. Neither Ronin nor Kyrith seem to notice, too absorbed in similar activities.

Riven gently pushes the woman off him and gets up. He grabs his clothes and trails Caryan out of the hall and along the corridor to Caryan’s private rooms. He follows Caryan in uninvited and enters. Caryan’s quarters at the top of the Fortress never fail to impress him, with its high walls and a huge open front that looks out over Niavara, the two moons looming over the blue mountain range in the distance, the blood moon casting the peaks into a crimson fire.

Everything is airy and high, with a huge terrace leading out into the night.

It’s clearly been built for creatures with wings. You could spread them out anywhere without tipping something over or having to tuck them in tight. Magic seals the windows up here, not glass, allowing Caryan to pass in and out as freely as the wind.

But Riven’s favorite part is the terrace leading out into the balmy night. From here, it is as if you stand directly under the stars.

“If you wanted an audience, you should have asked for one,” Caryan snarls, keeping his back turned to Riven.

But Riven knows if Caryan didn’t want him here, the door would have slammed in his face, or Caryan’s power would have blocked him like a wall.

“And you should have showered first. You smell of seaweed.”

Riven chuckles quietly at Caryan’s remark. All folk of the water—nymphs, mers, and sirens—smell unmistakably of tang and salt, a smell Riven likes and which reminds him of tossing floods and glimmering corals.

Caryan turns to him, his ever-changing eyes shifting between red and some mild blue Riven hardly ever sees on him—he doubts many others have at all.

Caryan allows him to see it, Riven knows. This is how they stand for a while, wordless, the room doused in the dirty red twilight shed by the blood moon.

“What do you want, Riven?” Caryan asks eventually, but his voice has whetted itself to an edge. Caryan knows very well why he is here, feeling everything over the bond.

Riven clears his throat. His voice is solemn, no trace of humor left as he asks, “Do you believe in Kalleandara’s prophecy?”

The girl who ends the blight. The blight—a reference to Caryan and his curse.

And Melody, the very girl.

Caryan just shrugs—a strange, human gesture—while Riven drops his clothes in his hand to the ground. There is no point in getting dressed now to keep up any rules of civility. He walks over to the bar built into the wall, pouring each of them a glass of ruby brandy. He saunters back to Caryan and hands him one.

Shoulder to shoulder they stand and look out over the city, until Caryan eventually decides to give him an answer .

“Prophecies hold a certain truth. I have learned that over the years.”

There it is—the fact that Caryan is older than all of them. Older than any fae has ever been. He was made immortal by Gatilla. Riven has no clue how long he served Gatilla before Riven himself was forced to join her court. Gatilla reached an age no witch or elf should ever be able to, no doubt due to her stolen magic. She made herself immortal, or at least thought she had. Until Caryan proved her wrong when he found a way to circumvent it—when he sucked all the magic out of her. Her supposed immortality went with it, transferred to Caryan.

But that Caryan cannot die naturally does not mean he cannot be killed , as far as Riven is aware.

Riven watches Caryan take another sip from the glass, that strange blue still in his eyes. Whatever the reason is, Riven knows it has something to do with that girl. “I am not sure that answers my question,” he says quietly.

“What do you want to know, then?” Shadows curl off Caryan’s powerful shoulders, dancing in a breeze like smoke.

“Do you believe prophecies hold true in general or can they be changed?”

“They point out the inevitable. But I think you should go to bed now. We need to go to the borders tomorrow,” Caryan answers casually before he turns away, striding towards the double-winged door that leads to his private chambers. Too casually, dismissing him. It stirs a strange kind of slumbering anger in Riven.

Riven steps into the shadows. Only to appear right in front of Caryan again, blocking his way.

A flicker of fury—maybe also disbelief—flashes across Caryan’s features before his face turns arctic. Black power rips from him, licking up Riven’s bare skin, ready to strike.

Riven just inclines his chin, forcing himself to keep his face schooled in careful indifference. Only years as the cruel enforcer of Palisandre and the years at Gatilla’s court after that make his heart rate stay calm, his breathing even .

He will pay for this, he knows. But he will pay gladly.

He pushes, “They say she ends the blight. The blight is you.”

Caryan’s eyes shift, the blue replaced by a blazing amber promising violence.

Yet Riven continues, “Does she mean your end?”

“What exactly is your question, Riven?” Another growl. A concession, though. Something Caryan has granted him, those deadly shadows still curling, waiting. Suspended. For now.

“Why bring her here then? Why not hide her? Hide her from anyone, even from you? I could do it. I’ll take her to the end of the world if you want me to and never return.” He means every word. He would do anything to prevent Caryan’s certain death. Even if it breaks his own heart.

A second passes between them, unspoken. The embers in Caryan’s eyes dim like fire without oxygen. “The prophecy says she will end the blight, but we do not yet know in what way she will end the blight—or me, if you will. I brought her here to find out.”

“No, you brought her here to find what only she can find. To gain more power. You brought her here to retrieve those relics. The elven artifacts. You want to use her talent, just as Lyrian did.”

Caryan’s teeth snap right into his face as fast as a lash of black lightning. He growls, “Not. Like. Lyrian.” Just as fast as he came, Caryan pulls back, and all that unholy magic with him. When he speaks again, his voice is slick as ice, so at odds with the black fire that still dances in his eyes. “Very careful, Riven, or I’m going to draw some more blood tonight.”

Riven pushes on regardless. “Then do it. But it needs to be said—keeping her here is tantamount to suicide.”

“I’m not going to warn you a second time,” Caryan seethes. His upper lip curls back, baring his fangs to their full length.

“She is a half-blood, Caryan!”

Half-bloods. So rare among the fae. Most of them are born with no magic at all, yet some… Some bear magic that is even more devastating than the magic of a high fae or a witch. Along with unique talents and skills. This is what makes th em so feared.

“Her magic can be cataclysmic. And you don’t even know what else slumbers in her blood.”

“Hold your tongue, Riven.” Power fills the room, wavering in the corners and bristling all around them, charging the air like a thunderstorm. Abyss save him, keeping his ground when Caryan is like this feels like weathering a storm. A deadly storm that will crush you and drown you and spit you out broken.

Riven flashes his teeth back. Hells, never has he overstepped so far. “No. It needs to be said—what you are looking for can’t be so valuable to risk having her here. You’re putting everything at risk. Everything you’ve built.”

“And everything can crumble to dust with the next war, Riven. I need those relics to win it.” Caryan’s voice is pure ice, streaks of black lightning now sizzling through the air. Ready to strike and maim and burn.

Riven ignores them. “You don’t. I have already spoken to leaders of other courts. We can get their support. I can win them over. They will have our back if we offer them something in return, side with us instead of Palisandre. I have also been successful in infiltrating the elven kingdoms, we—”

Caryan cuts him off. “Having them at my back gives them the perfect opportunity to drive a knife in. I have seen this game too often.”

“You can’t risk your own life, Caryan! Her very mother almost killed you!” Riven waits for Caryan’s magic to cleave him. But the surge of power ripples away and subsides, and Caryan’s eyes turn dark again. Riven doesn’t know what is worse—that Caryan doesn’t punish him or the vacant expression on his face.

“I told you that prophecies point out the inevitable. Even if the girl means my end… I can’t escape my fate.”

Riven feels his own heart in his chest breaking, as if something keeps piercing it again and again, prying it apart. Shattering it. His voice breaks, too, as he murmurs, “I can’t allow it.”

“Can’t allow what, Riven? You can’t outrun your destiny, or mine for that matter. ”

“We must be able to do something .”

Caryan only slowly shakes his head.

“Send her away! Send me away with her! I beseech you!” he tries again, desperation tingeing every word.

“You know the paradox of a prophecy—of fate? You don’t know in what way it will be fulfilled, Riven. You don’t know which of those steps you take are planned and which are random. But fate always finds a way, no matter how much you bend it, or even outsmart it. It will catch up, even if you try to run away with her.” Caryan’s voice has a finality that creeps like ice under Riven’s skin, makes him shiver from the inside, turning it dead.

“That’s not true. Meanara changed fate when she saved your life. There is always another way. Please, Caryan. Let’s go to the great oracle again. Let’s ask Kalleandara for another way!”

“I have already done that, Riven. She told me that it is sealed, was sealed the day Meanara decided to cure me.”

Meanara, the great healer of Avandal. Riven just stands there, arms slack at his sides, unable to find words. Caryan has already consulted the oracle. His last scrap of hope swiped away.

And burnt to ashes.

It only makes it worse when Caryan adds quietly, “My fate won’t include you, though. Nor Kyrith or Ronin. You will live, I made sure of that. The oracle promised.”

Riven can’t help it. Can’t help but fall to his knees then, resting his forehead against Caryan’s thigh, allowing his eyes to drift shut. “You can’t, Caryan. There must be a way…”

Caryan gently runs his fingers through Riven’s hair. “Go, Riven. Sleep. Even we must sleep. It’s been a long night. And I need you ready tomorrow. Darker times are approaching.”

With this, Caryan steps away from him, turning his back and walking out of the room into the next one. The door closes behind him with a saturated thud, shutting Riven out.

Riven stays there, on the floor, on his knees. If he was a mortal, he would weep. But fae can’t cry, so he waits for the tightness in his chest, in his heart, to ease enough that he can breathe again .

He will find a way.

He will not allow his closest friend, his brother, to die. He can’t.

He grabs his clothes from where he dropped them on the floor and puts them back on before he ventures out, back into the quiet halls.

He will find a way.

And if the girl is the one to kill Caryan one day, he is going to find out how… and prevent it.

***

The cold air bites his skin as he enters the dungeon. But when he walks up to the cell where he carefully laid Melody down some hours ago, he finds it empty.

So Caryan allowed her out after all. Strange. Caryan isn’t known for mercy, or pity.

Yet… he should have known by the blue in Caryan’s eyes. Melody somehow caused it, Riven knows. In his experience, the blue indicates the moments Caryan comes closest to feeling something . And the girl made Caryan feel something after all these years.

Riven runs a hand through his hair. Yes, he should have known. As he should have known so many other things, damn him. That Caryan always planned to keep her in the first place. Riven, as Caryan’s right hand, should have anticipated it. Sensed it. But he had been so focused on finding her that he never even entertained another possibility other than that Caryan would eliminate her immediately.

Riven lets out a long breath while he keeps staring at the empty cell. He was a fool.

But that Melody managed to trigger Caryan, in whatever way… maybe it’s a key. A clue, a hint to follow up on. He will take everything into consideration to cheat fate. To save his brother.

He turns and walks away, ignoring all the hushed, pleading voices from the other cells, following him up the stairs.

He stops in the hall where he dropped her bag, the black duffle bag containing all her belongings. So little. He tries not to remember the reek of desperation that clung in every fiber of her loveless, barren room. In the linen of her bedsheets. In the curtains. In the colorless carpet. The scent of distress. Of panic. Of undiluted fear and desperation, so dense it felt like acid in his nose.

No wonder she tried to fight him, to run from him in the woods. No wonder she didn’t want to go back to Lyrian’s house.

Whatever Lyrian had done to her, it was terrible. It was hard to follow Caryan’s wishes. Not only because of what Riven just said to his friend. Not only because bringing the girl here means fulfilling Kalleandara’s prophecy, knowing her presence will affect Caryan’s fate, but also to do this to her—bring her here and dump her in the middle of a cruel fae court.

She deserves some calm, some peace, some happiness, and being a slave here…

He clenches his teeth, unwilling to pursue that train of thought.

Duffle bag in hand, he walks straight to the slave quarters, following the faint trace of her scent up to a tiny room.

But when he opens the door, the room too is empty.