Page 33 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Melody

When I wake up the next morning, Riven’s gone, the sun already up, so I hurry to brush my teeth, shower, and then run to the kitchen.

Later that morning, I return to the corridor that leads to the throne room… when a screech tears the air, followed by a slashing sound and a crack, as if something has just burst open.

I freeze. A slender, blue-skinned, turquoise-haired siren grabs me by the wrist and pulls me along with her into a different room, as big as the ballroom but darker, to join some other servants who’re already crouching behind columns.

There, on a throne carved of gold-veined onyx with two beasts with long, vicious fangs forming the armrests, lounges the Dark Lord. The beasts are hewn in such an artistic form they seem to dissolve from the stone, ready to rip into the crowd that has gathered. But my eyes rest on a huge puddle of blood that stretches to a large double-winged door to the left and my heart jolts into my throat in answer.

Someone just dragged a body out.

My gaze wanders over the crowd, their faces rabid from the bloodletting and their eyes hungry. But below that, pure, undiluted fear paints their auras a deep, dark blue.

My mouth goes suddenly dry .

With a shudder, I look back to Caryan. A black-and-gold crown rests on his midnight hair at an insouciant angle, accentuating his perfect features. He wears black clothes that look like they’re made for combat but at the same time strangely modern and human, just like his castle.

On the outside, he looks endlessly bored, indifference and disdain simmering in storm-gray eyes. But inside, he is still livid, his aura as furious and bristling as last night.

I shudder as my gaze falls on the huge sword that leans negligently against the throne next to him, discarded like an afterthought. Its blade glistens with fresh blood.

Riven stands slightly behind Caryan to the right. He wears a shirt of dark silk and a long coat made of heavy, black silk brocade, his hands casually in the pockets of his pants. As if he wants to show that he doesn’t need his hands to kill. His aura, too, is swirling with fury.

Kyrith and Ronin flank the throne, two huge, silver swords slung across their backs. They’re both clad in some kind of dark armor made of the scaly, shimmering skin of some creature I don’t know.

Riven’s face, like Caryan’s, holds nothing but latent disinterest, while Ronin and Kyrith seem ready to shred the crowd to ribbons. The immovable masks of the Dark Lord’s executors.

All of them watch the faun kneeling in front of the throne, dressed in a tunic of moss-green gossamer, a heavy scarlet cloak pinned at his shoulders. He carries a thin rapier on his belt, and his hooved feet are tipped in covers of liquid gold. Too late do I notice that the peaks of his huge, twirling horns are encrusted with a deep-red color, making it look like he recently impaled someone.

“Stand, spymaster.” Caryan’s voice booms through the room, followed by a wave of power that makes everyone present gasp for air.

The faun dips his head deeply, his horns touching the space in front of the king’s boots before he comes back up to standing. “Thank you, my king. I have reason to believe that one of the servants’ circles is behind the hostile infiltration attempts.”

“Very well, my blade is still thirsting. Bring the creature and we’ll see.” Caryan waves an elegant hand and the massive door at the other end of the hall opens. Two guards, their horns the same deep red, drag in a pretty siren with blush pink hair and fine features. She’d be beautiful if her face wasn’t so gaunt and her eyes so bruised.

My heart jumps. She’s one of the girls who bathed and scrubbed me. A few meters away from her in the crowd of servants, I spot Nidaw covering her mouth with a hand, her eyes pained and wide with shock as the guards push the siren to her knees in front of Caryan.

The spymaster gestures with a hand whose tips are covered with long, golden claws. “Here she is, my lord. We’ve found evidence that she sent owls to the High Court of Palisandre. The letters were enchanted and burned themselves when we caught the owls, so we weren’t able to retrieve their contents.”

Another hush goes through the crowd. My eyes stay transfixed on the siren, who’s now shivering the way I shivered in that dungeon. My throat tightens up as fear stirs in me, not for myself, but for her.

Caryan stands and comes down the few steps of the dais, stopping in front of her, that vicious blade still resting against the throne. “Rise,” he commands.

The woman does, barely able to stand she’s trembling so hard. Caryan takes her tiny hand and brings it up to his lips. The woman lets out a slight cry as his teeth sink into the flesh of her wrist. Caryan’s storm-gray eyes shift into a menacing crimson as her blood flows from her into his body. He takes only a sip before he lets her go.

His voice breaks the crushing silence once again. “You wrote those letters to your aunt. You know that all contact with Palisandre is considered a crime warranting an execution. When I took you in as a servant, you were read the rules, and yet you chose to break them. To disobey your king.”

The girl starts to plea heartbreakingly. It looks almost like she’s crying, but no tears roll over her cheeks. She falls to her knees again, her forehead resting on the ground in front of the king’s feet, her webbed fingers touching his boots. “I never meant to disobey the rules, my lord. It’s just… my aunt. She raised me. She’s old, my lord. Please, forgive me. Please.”

I find myself holding my breath until Caryan says, “I will stay the execution this time, but disobey me again and your head will roll. Yet I won’t let this infraction go unpunished. Whip her, fifteen times.”

The last words are directed toward the spymaster, who nods once and pulls a long, leather whip free of his belt.

We flay them. Fifteen times.

Horror sluices through me as the two guards cut the siren’s shirt open at the back, exposing her bluish, slightly striped skin. My throat has turned so dry I can barely swallow.

Caryan raises his head. “There is a traitor among you. And I do not deal kindly with traitors. Let this be a warning to all of you. This is an exception I will only make once. The next one who deems it wise to break my rules will find their head put on a spike and left outside for the crows and vultures to feed on.”

With this said, he returns to his throne.

“No!” I whisper as the spymaster runs the whip through his fingers one last time, adjusting his position. “No!” I want to storm out to grab the siren, but sharp nails dig into the flesh of my arm, and Nidaw’s face is suddenly next to mine.

“Don’t, girl! That would only mean your certain execution. The spymaster and the guards are crimson-horns, the most dangerous of their kind. They’ll kill anyone who interferes with their tasks. Once they shed blood, they cannot stop. They can only do so when the Dark Lord commands them to. Forces them to stop. They dip their horns in the blood of their victims and never wash it off.”

Nidaw keeps digging her nails into me until her words register. Only when I nod slowly does she let go. Angry, bloody half-moons remain on my white skin.

A crack splits the room, followed by a heartbreaking scream. And every word, every thought, every feeling leaves me .

I watch numbly as the spymaster brings the lash across the siren’s back again, another patch of her skin ripping open, the crack reverberating through the vast halls like a warning.

When I can’t take it any longer, I glance back at Caryan, who looks sinister and infinitely bored. Riven’s face behind him is a mask of glorious disinterest.

How can he not want to stop this?

“Come now, girl,” Nidaw whispers into my ear, her long-clawed fingers tugging at the fabric of my clothes. “You’ve seen enough. Come now.”

I let Nidaw sweep me away back to the kitchen, the siren’s screams ebbing off with every step we distance ourselves from the throne room.

***

Later, in the kitchen, Nidaw puts a pot of steaming water with herbs in front of me. Just then, the doors open, and some sirens drag the wounded girl in. Nidaw straightens from her place at the hearth and walks straight toward the girl.

I flinch when she slaps the girl so hard her head tilts to the side, her long, pink hair falling into her face.

“Stupid, stupid girl. What did you do?”

The girl, the fabric of her clothes still hanging in scraps along with her skin, just lowers her head. “I’m sorry, Nidaw.”

“I brought you here to our king and you… you bring shame on all of us. You’ve been accused of treason.”

“It was just—”

“Enough. We all heard it, loud and clear. You can be glad that he looked into your blood. I know he’d have killed you if it weren’t for me, foolish girl. He spared you because of me. For me .”

The girl falls to her knees like she did in front of the Dark Lord. “Forgive me, Nidaw.”

Nidaw glowers at her before she sinks down on her knees as well. Briefly, I think she is going to slap the girl again. But then she takes the girl’s face in her hands, her eyes wide with pain. I understand then, the warning Nidaw gave me in the throne room.

She whispers to the girl, “How would I have lived with seeing you beheaded, huh? How would we all have lived with that? How could you be so stupid?”

I jolt up as the siren turns her head and points a finger at me. “This… this is all because of her. Her presence imperils us all.”

Her face is suddenly contorted with fury so intense I feel my cheeks flame with heat. There’s so much anger in her eyes, in her aura as she beholds me, as if she’d love to burn me with her gaze.

Nidaw grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her. “Stop it now, Everly, and never say that again, do you hear me?”

Everly finally lowers her head, but whispers loud enough that I can still hear her, “I’m sorry, Nidaw, but it’s true. We all think it—all would be better if she’d never come here.”

“I warn you, girl. One more word and you’ll be sent to the prison, you hear me? Now, let me see to your wounds, silly one.”

I drop my eyes to my tea, but my cheeks sting, and my heart hammers even faster than before and won’t slow.

Because of you . All of this because of me? Why?

Because of those Nefarians who tried to kill me. Because I’m the last silver elf. Hells, they got interrogated and flayed because of me. But why? Can I really be so precious? All because I can read forgotten languages?

Her presence imperils us all.

I keep my head low as the sirens start to remove the scraps of clothing from Everly’s deep wounds, applying an ointment that instantly seals the skin shut. Then I glance at Nidaw, who’s taken the girl in her arms and keeps rocking her back and forth on the floor, both of them crying now without shedding tears.

I look away quickly, wishing someone had taken care of my wounds when the bloodhounds hurt me. I wish I had someone—anyone—who cared, the way they do for each other. But I don’t belong here. No, I only make it worse .

To think that this… that I brought this upon them. I feel sick to my stomach.

Not to mention what Riven told me last night. He’d been a slave. Forced to kill and serve in Gatilla’s bedroom. Is this what slaves do? Is this why Caryan made me kneel over him at the celebrations?

For a few moments, I feel like I can’t breathe. That the walls are closing in. The room’s suddenly too tight, even though it’s vast. My heartbeat skyrockets. It makes me dizzy, my skin’s breaking out in a cold sweat.

I startle as Nidaw gets up, sending all of us back to our tasks.

“Work is your friend. It makes you forget, so go!” she says as if she knew about the turmoil inside of me.

The punished girl gets to her feet. She’s changed into a fresh set of clothes, and Nidaw shoos all of us out after putting a bucket with water and brushes into our hands as if nothing ever happened.

But it did happen. All would be better if she’d never come here .