Page 35 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Melody

After the incident, Nidaw sends me to the laundry room where I fold bedsheets and pillowcases until my back aches so badly I’m not sure I’ll be able to move tomorrow. But at least it makes me tired enough to keep my rising panic at bay, but not enough to dispel my dark thoughts. I try to push all the ugly fear down while I work. Try to forget how Caryan sank his teeth into me last night. His unleashed rage.

In vain.

I barely listen to the chatter of the sirens, the murmured, slightly hissed sounds washing over me like a soothing chant. I’m so absorbed in my sinister ruminations that I barely register when their whispers suddenly turn into actual words.

I glance over to them, wondering why they’ve suddenly changed their language to mine. Only to realize that they haven’t. I can… understand them. Like those runes in the book. Talents of a silver elf. Maybe I should start to get used to it.

“In two days they celebrate Gatilla’s death day in town. It’s going to be huge, with fires everywhere and magnolia wine. And the Dark Lord will be there,” the one with slightly coral hair whispers, covering her mouth with her hand as if she’s just spilled a dangerous secret. Gatilla’s death day.

Gatilla, the woman who enslaved Riven .

The other one looks at her, those teal eyes wide. “I thought we were not allowed to go.”

“Didn’t stop me last year,” the coral-haired one admits with a wide grin.

“What? How did you get out?”

Her friend rolls her turquoise eyes before she juts her delicate chin toward an inconspicuous door to our right. “Everyone knows. You first get to the washrooms and then you take the first corridor right and walk straight out. There are steps that lead down the hill, and you have to cross the tiny stretch of desert, but then—you’re right there.”

I look down, and my heart starts to hammer even faster than before as if it wanted to escape my chest. An exit. I try hard to look bored so that they keep talking, hiding my trembling hands.

The other girl vehemently shakes her head, as if she’s afraid of just thinking about the idea. “We can’t. You know that the Dark Lord warded the whole Fortress and sealed it with spells,” she whispers under her breath. “The wards are going to kill you if you don’t know how to pass.”

“Well, some soldiers can pass, and they’re quite generous after sex.” The siren smiles with her small, sharp teeth.

“But I heard that the crimson-horns are going to torture everyone they catch. You saw what happened to Everly.”

“Everly was because of her ,” she tsks.

I try not to notice the pointed look she gives me. Try not to notice the hate burning in her aura. I quickly walk into another room to hide how bad I’m shaking.

The rest of the day goes by way too slowly. The silence of the Fortress is grating on me, making me restless; nervous. When Nidaw eventually releases us into the approaching evening, I run to my room as fast as I can, changing my loose shirt and trousers for my skintight black leggings and a fresh T-shirt. Before I leave my room, I grab my black ankle boots from where I hid them under my bed—leaving me without shoes would have been a good way to make sure I can’t leave—and tuck them under my arm. I can’t run quietly with them, but I’ll need them out there in the unkind environment of the harsh desert ground.

A handful of moments later I’m already sprinting back to the kitchen, hellbent on using the tiny window of quiet between shift-end and the celebrations.

I already catalogued the rhythms of the staff, of the celebrations, so it’s easy to time my movements right. The only thing I can’t plan for are the guards. But no one spots me when I rip open the door to the laundry rooms and head straight for the door behind a few breaths later.

The corridor to the right. The door at the back, and then—

I slam into an invisible wall.

Wards.

I totally forgot about the fucking wards.

For a second desperation claws at me, ready to pull me under until I can’t breathe as I stare at my freedom only one tiny step away. So close and yet so out of reach.

No! I won’t be stopped by damn wards, or spells, or whatever. Not when I can taste the freedom on my tongue, the arid wind catching in my hair, the whisp of air and space as stare up at the endless horizon and at the sun that heats the ground right in front of my naked feet.

Only this invisible wall is separating me from this . From escaping.

I clamp down on my damn desperation and let the sudden fury rise in me. It quickly turns into fiery determination.

I will figure out those damn wards. I will get through this. No is not an option.

I carefully stretch out my hands and touch the smooth wall again. First, it’s cool like stone, but then it suddenly starts to heat up under my palm, bristling and burning . Ouch.

I jerk my hand back, eyes wide at the prickle that ran through me. The inside of my hand is slightly red as if something bit me. Out. You want out, Melody. You can do this. Through that wall, I can see the desert waiting. Freedom waiting .

I take a deep breath and touch the barrier again.

This time I close my eyes and let the ward’s magic hum through my body, directing it between my hands, more instinct than anything.

And some primal, alien part of me somehow recognizes its language, its magic, recognizes the spells with which the ward was woven. When I focus on it, I can see everything in front of my inner eye. An impossibly complicated pattern, gleaming otherworldly dark, bristling with black electricity and fire; sticky, like a spiderweb.

I know it’s also deadly. One more step and it would burn me like a bolt of lightning. Reduce me to ash.

That slight burn on my hand has been a warning.

An intrinsic part of me knows this, yet… it’s the only chance I have.

And before I know what I’m doing, I take another step while I mentally throw myself at those spells.

There is no collision. No combustion.

Those deadly tendrils disperse before they waver around me for a second, seemingly suspended. Then they regroup and come for me in dark arrows. Fast.

I’m dead. Panic threatens to consume me but I refuse to give in, refuse to step back but keep focusing on my own fury, flaring up like a wall of white flames around me, shielding me against the dark magic, catalyzed by my cast-iron will. I want out. I want to rip them open.

If they want to kill me, let them come—because I will fight back.

And I’m going to win.

Because I fucking won’t die today.

Those white flames flare, dousing the arrows’ brimming black power, their speed, and they turn back into sticky, black threads. Reflexively, I spread my fingers and command those tendrils to reform until they’re snaking around my hand, still tame and no longer fatal. I gasp as it works, gasp at my own recklessness, as my body does it all by itself and I’m moving my hand, slowly twining and untwining the threads of magic .

I have no clue what the hells I’m doing but it seems to work. I’m not dead yet. Maybe another of my talents? But I don’t have time to think about that because the air suddenly flickers and the barrier—gone.

I pull my hand back and let out a shuddering breath.

I did that. Well, some part of me did that. Dwell on it later! I slip through the door.

On the other side, I absently put my hand back against the stone wall of the Fortress and command the wards to seal the entrance again. The stone warms under my palm and I feel the magic that runs through it like veins through a body obeying; the gentlest of night-kissed shadows brushes against my cheek before the wall cools under my skin.

I glance up. I’m right under the sky, above me the beginning orange of a sunset already strewn with the first stars.

Freedom . For the first time in a long time, there are no walls around me, nothing but sky over my head. For a moment, I just stare, breathe in the vastness of the arid wasteland that stretches out before me. Then I slip into my boots and start to jog down the small trail of stairs that’s been hewn into the reddish rock.

Only when I reach the last one do I look up to see the Fortress—the beautiful building made of stone, metal, and glass—elegantly and frighteningly enthroned on the hill.

With a final glance, I turn my head toward the city and run.