Page 41 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Riven

Riven watches Melody sleep next to him on his bed. It was how Caryan came in, her in his arms, gently lowering her onto the silken pillows. His king vanished without a second glance at her, or another word to him.

Riven’s been watching her ever since. The way her eyes move restlessly under her lids, the way she mumbles words as if talking to someone in her dreams, her delicate body still only veiled by a towel. Once, he found himself reaching out to her, as if to run his fingertips over the curve of her chin.

He shouldn’t. Shouldn’t be that much of a fool.

As if she sensed it, though, her eyes fly open.

“You… are not Caryan,” she says.

“I cannot disagree.”

She sits up, her eyes taking in her surroundings. He lit the candles for her, not sure whether she is able to see in the dark as fae can or not. They flicker in the color of his unholy magic, black with hues of lilac, mingling with the sanguine light the moon is shedding.

They make her brown hair shine in crimson hues, her red lips even darker, the color of her eyes like the leaves in fall.

He notices how her gaze catches on the tapestries hung on the walls. The only leftovers he took from his former life once Caryan freed him from his shackles .

“Those are… beautiful,” she says.

“They are. I took them from the ivory halls of the royal palace in Palisandre,” he agrees. They’re the only flammable things his demonic flames haven’t turned to ashes. The only remnants he wants to have around.

She glances at him, and he knows she sees the darkness in his aura by the way her eyes change. She looks back at the tapestries. “They seem alive, somehow.”

“They are, in a sense. They were made by forest sprites. They say they wove the whole Newmoon Woodlands into five of them, capturing all its creatures and secrets within. It’s a myth, though. A kind one.”

“The Newmoon Woodlands?”

“The dryads’ sanctum. The elves destroyed it and killed their queen when she refused to bow to the king. A lot of songs and stories sprang from that cruel event, as fae have a penchant for bloodshed and barbarity. One of them claims that a demon princess came along right on time, and with the aid of those forest sprites, turned them all into five murals to save them. As I said, a myth, but one I’d like to believe,” he responds gravely. “Better than to think they did, indeed, burn down the forest and behead their queen.”

She says nothing, just chews on her lips.

Riven leans forward. “Do you see now how cruel this world is? Or do you need some more stories to set a spark to your imagination?”

Her eyes fly up to him at his tone, at his words. “Thank you, I already know how cruel it is,” she hisses. “It’s not like I missed that scene in the throne room.”

“Good. You shouldn’t have. Maybe you understand now how lucky we are to find you still alive, not devoured by some otherworldly monster.” She looks away as he continues, “I’m surprised, though, to find you still unharmed. Your skin not torn apart by the whip.”

Her head snaps back to him, her eyes simmering. “You almost sound as if you wish it was.”

“Maybe I do. Maybe some scars would carve some sense into you,” he growls viciously, and this time she flinches back from him as if he’s hit her. As if she’s never seen him before.

“Why not do it yourself? Or does your king not allow it?” Her eyes glow with fury and hurt.

“I would truly consider it if it kept you from such idiotic ideas in the future.”

“Funny how he said something similar,” she says, a smile on her face that looks as cold as the Winterlands.

Riven leans back, running a hand through his hair and over his face. Melody gets up.

“Where do you think you are going?” he asks, his voice still raw. But sharp.

“To my room.” She heads for the door.

He gets up too. Before she’s halfway crossed the room, he blocks her way. Although she is very tall, she still has to lift her head to look up at him. “Oh no. You are going nowhere. You and I are to stay here for the night, whether you like it or not.”

“That sounds like great fun,” she says.

To his surprise, she turns around and walks back to the bed. She sits down and pulls her legs up close, her long hair falling around her body, shielding her face. Riven follows her and sinks back into the chair, watching her.

“You’re still pissed,” she says after a while into the silence. “I can see it all over you.”

“Indignant rather than pissed . Enraged, granted. Annoyed, perhaps,” he retorts dryly, pursing his lips, his fingers drumming on the armrest.

“Really? Feels rather like sulky and sour to me.”

“Well, babysitting is quite a waste of my talents.” Riven scrutinizes his nails and adds, “And it gets rather tiresome.”

“Yeah, what would you be rather doing? Day-drinking and seducing women?” She looks at him now, another challenge in her gaze. She’s in some mood, provoking him like this but he’s already seen her temper.

“Careful,” he warns, reining in his instinct to bare his fangs .

“Or what? You’ll singe my hair? Or rip into my throat like Caryan. Oh, you can’t, remember. You made a promise not to hurt me.”

He licks his teeth before he turns his head away, allowing himself a deep breath. “I did indeed.”

“Regretting it already?”

His eyes go back to her. To his surprise there is pain in them, belying her sharpness. “My cheeky little pup, how could I ever, when you are so endearing?”

“Just trying to make babysitting more fun for you.”

He leans forward, bracing himself on his legs. “I would know far more entertaining ways to achieve that.” He expects her to back down, to blush. But whatever happened before, it must have stripped away her usual shyness, because she’s holding his gaze, her face blank, her eyes cold.

He turns serious again. His voice falls low as he asks, “Why did you run away, Melody?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t like to be locked away, for one.” She says it angrily but turns her head away from him at that.

“And where in the sweet hells would you have gone?”

“Away. To Niavara,” she hisses, but her eyes are shining.

“Niavara is not for you,” he answers.

Her head whips back to him. “Nothing here is for me. I’m weak and fragile. I don’t belong here. It sucks.” When he doesn’t say anything, she says, “Come, deny it.”

“I cannot.”

She flinches slightly at his truth, as if this was an insult, but she catches herself. “Then go ahead, tell me how reckless, and foolish, and stupid I am. That I should be grateful Caryan found me first and keeps me like a pet.”

Riven falls utterly still when he spots sudden tears welling in her eyes. Now she is truly crying . It’s so rare to see a fae cry, he’s forgotten how it looks. But every time she does, the sight arrests him anew, the cruel beauty of it. Like rain, pattering her skin, her eyes overflowing and wide. He feels the overwhelming urge to reach out to her, but that would be foolish.

“I will do no such thing,” he says instead, his voice gentle.

She glances at him, vigilantly, as if she’s expecting a cruel joke. “Why?”

“Because I don’t think that you are foolish, or stupid, and I don’t think that you should be grateful.”

She seems surprised by his answer. “I thought you loved him.”

“I do. But loving someone doesn’t mean you always agree with the things he or she does. Why did you want to go to Niavara? There is no portal to the human world there,” he says to make that very clear.

“I wasn’t looking for a damn portal. What would I do in the human world anyway? I know barely more about the human world than about this one.”

He hates how desperate she sounds. “What did you want there then?”

Melody bites her lips, clearly debating something. “I don’t know… answers maybe,” she admits finally.

“Answers?”

“Caryan gave me a book. In that book about silver elves, someone left a handwritten list with three places on the last page. One of them is the library in Niavara. I wanted to see whether I could find whatever is there. It was a message, for someone like me, written in the same language as the book.”

Riven frowns, not showing his surprise. He truly thought she wanted to find a way home to the human world. And Caryan gave her a book. A test then, for her? Or something else? “I’m afraid there is no library there anymore. It was destroyed, more than two hundred years ago,” he says. “Your book must be old.”

“By specters, I know that. I read about the destruction of Niavara in that very book, so it must be newer. Someone left that message after Niavara was destroyed. That means whatever is there must still be there.”

Riven’s frown only deepens. There had been only one other silver elf in the world before Melody. The only one for three centuries. Her mother.

She reads it in his face because she asks, “What?”

“It’s interesting, that’s all,” he says quickly.

He can see she doesn’t believe him. He concentrates hard on keeping the magical mist around his aura up and untorn while he holds her gaze. If she spotted the slightest hint there, she would do everything to get there, he knows.

But could it really be that Ciellara left a message for her in the book? Or maybe one of the acolytes that still lived in the archives of the great libraries, hidden away from the world, deep in the cellars did? A few of them still knew some forgotten languages, as far as Riven knows. Not that he’s ever asked one, because they rarely came up from the depths and even more rarely spoke to anyone… or spoke at all, for that matter.

“What does this message say?” he asks.

Melody shrugs. “Just Unravel the truths, star-struck and moon-kissed one. And then three places. Library of Niavara . Archives of Evander. Ruins of Khalix. Do you know them?”

Unravel the truths. Which truths? And moon-kissed and star-struck one —clearly a reference to a silver elf.

Riven keeps his face blank as he says, “I do. Evander is a part of Palisandre.”

“And Khalix?”

He swallows. “It’s a desert city on the third continent to the east. I was born there.”

Her eyes widen. “And… what is there? Is there a library?”

“Yes. One of the largest ones. It’s a city hewn deep into a desert rock with massive, cavernous archives, but I wouldn’t know what to find there.”

“Can we… go there?” she asks carefully.

“No, I’m afraid not. Khalix is not on the best terms with Niavara,” Riven retorts evasively. Not after the Nefarians broke into the Fortress. Abyss, Riven should be glad that Caryan hasn’t yet decided to wipe Khalix from the face of this world forever—threat or no. “Besides, no one except the acolytes can enter the library. All archives are sealed to outsiders. Only those who swear themselves to the written knowledge are allowed access.”

“Not even the queen or the king can go?”

“No.”

She frowns, then asks quietly, “Not even… Caryan?”

Riven shakes his head. “No. They were sealed thousands of years ago with spells long forgotten, and ancient powers. Their wards have never been breached, not even by an angel.”

Eventually, Melody looks away, chewing on her lip. “Gatilla’s death party is in two days, right?”

Riven doesn’t like the direction this is going either. “Indeed.”

“It’s in Niavara? You can take me.”

“I can’t take you, Melody. It’s not safe. And besides, there is nothing left of that library.”

“I’d be with you, would I not? And we could have a look. Makes babysitting a little more fun.”

“That night in town.” He shakes his head. “You have no idea what it is about. I cannot.”

She gets up and walks over to him, stopping right in front of him. He has to lean back to look at her face, to take her in fully, her hair gilded by the moon and her skin glistening.

He wonders whether she can see what her presence is doing to him, whether his aura shows even though he tries hard to hide it. Because she leans in, over him, bracing herself on the armrests, her long hair grazing his elbows, that damn towel barely hiding her from his eyes.

“We could make a bargain,” she says, her voice low. “You get whatever you desire and I…”

She’s so close, her face over him, her breath brushing his lips. Her scent everywhere around him. He can feel her warmth, her heartbeat that has picked up just a notch. Abyss, she is beautiful.

“Will I? And what do you think I desire ?”

She licks her lips, and he follows the movement of her tongue .

Her eyes rove over his face before she whispers, a touch shyly, “I don’t know. You tell me.”

“Didn’t I warn you about bargains with villains like my kind?” He makes his voice sound cold. He sits up and she retreats instinctively. He follows her movement until they’re both sitting on the bed, faces so close he can see the dark-gray rims around her brown irises. This brown, such an unusual color among fae, making it all the more intriguing. Like dark forest honey.

“You’re not a villain.”

Her eyes are wide as he reaches out and traces the curve of her cheek.

“Don’t assume things you can’t know. You might know what I did, but you don’t know what I am ,” he drawls. A warning. He’s indeed been careful to hide his aura from her behind a wall of gray magical mist from the moment he learned about her talent.

But she says, “I know that you’re afraid you’ve lost your soul. Traded it for the darkness.”

The way she says it makes him realize how much she can still sense on him. Or maybe he had been too distracted at times.

Her words make him unable to move though. His very fear lies bare. He’s exposed. It unravels him, and renders him speechless.

It is she who reaches out to him now, who traces the shape of his ears and down over his cheeks. He holds perfectly still, watching her follow the movements of her fingers with her eyes.

It is she who pushes him down, who slides over him. She who kneels over him, looking down on him as if she knows every dark thought he’s ever had, still only wrapped in that towel.

Her eyes flicker viciously. “Let’s play a game. A truth for a truth.”

“Then lead,” he says before he can think better of it. Her presence and the absence of her clothes make thinking hard.

“Tell me what you want to do to me right now.”

He swallows. “A lot of things.”

“That doesn’t count. The darkest of them.”

He doesn’t breathe. He can feel the magic of what he just agreed to weaving around them, pulling tight. He made a deal. He has to answer. Truthfully. He’s a fool.

“I don’t think this would be appropriate,” he says, his voice husky.

“I want to know.”

“Melody, I do not…” He closes his eyes briefly, desperate for a way out as the magic around him pulls tighter, thick and heavy and unbreakable.

“Do not what?”

“I do not want to scare you,” he admits, meaning it. “Please, ask me in another way.”

“No,” she says, her eyes never leaving his, the flames dancing in them relentlessly.

He reaches out to her, the magic making his throat ache to answer as he agreed to. “I want to have you in a way that erases all those who have touched you before.”

“Like?”

He clenches his teeth against the power of the bargain pulling tighter and tighter. She won’t let him out of this, and he cannot draw it out much longer.

“Don’t be cruel,” he says quietly, a plea in his voice.

But she just leans down, her beautiful lips only millimeters away. “Tell me.”

He looks away, unable to bear her face, the look in it. Unable to ignore the burning in his throat, in his ribcage, in his very core either. The magic, growing stronger the longer he doesn’t obey. It will burn him alive, from the inside out.

“Not the darkest, Melody. Anything but that—”

“That bad, huh?” Her voice is cold, but her eyes are not. They are wide and afraid.

“It is violent, I won’t deny that. And it might sound…” He bares his teeth against the pain of it, of resisting. Gods, it will kill him. “I’ll give you what you want, but do not force me to do this, I beseech you. I will go down on my knees and stay until they are raw if you wish me to. I will do anything, but not this. ”

“Anything.” She ponders quietly, and were he not shaken by pain and fire inside, he would have chastised himself for this idiocy.

“You know I would never harm you in a way you don’t wish me to. I made sure I couldn’t, and even if I had not, I would not. Please,” he forces out, his mouth slowly filling with blood as the magic keeps killing him from the inside.

“Take me to Niavara the day after tomorrow then,” she says, her eyes going wide with shock as she notices the blood on his lips, more dripping over his chin.

He wipes it off with his dark sleeve before he breathes, “I will.” His eyes drift shut as he gulps down precious air as the magic eases and vanishes. The deal fulfilled.

Melody still kneels over him, but her skin has turned glassy and pale, her face unreadable. That beautiful face limned by the night, her full lips, her straight nose, her ears that look like the perfect mixture of elf and human, startled and alert.

“What… where did that blood come from?” she whispers, her heart fast.

“The magic of that bargain,” he cuts in, his voice rough, hard. “It would have killed me from the inside. Slowly bleeding me out.”

In one fluid and fast movement, Riven is over her, holding her delicate wrists with his hands. “You owe me now, if I’m not mistaken.” His voice has become almost a growl.

“A truth?” she asks coolly, but he can see her fluttering pulse under her skin. Hear it. Like the frantic wingbeats of a tiny bird.

“No, no longer a truth, since we changed the rules. A demand you will fulfill.”

Now she looks at him with real fear in her eyes. But she doesn’t yet know enough of the rules of this world. “Then tell me what you want.” Her voice has fallen very quiet, lost its edge. She turns her head away from him, as he did before.

He leans down to her neck, breathing in her scent, her silken hair brushing his cheek. He could do anything with her. Take everything. He whispers against her skin, “Do you see now how dangerous bargains are with my kind? ”

She flinches. He lets go of her hands when he hears her heartbeat stumble. When her fear tinges the air, oppressive and heavy. He’s disgusted by himself.

He slides off her, lets her body free. She curls up on her side, still not looking at him, her hands clutching the sheets so hard her knuckles turn white as snow.

He gets up and looks down on her. “I could make you do anything. Call that bargain in anytime from now on, and you could not resist.”

When she still doesn’t look at him, he kneels in front of her.

“What do you want then?” she asks, her eyes lost, her gaze far away.

“What would you want?” he asks back gently, brushing a strand of long hair out of her face.

“Just say it. It’s not like I’ve had my fair share of cruel encounters yet tonight.”

Her words are mocking, but her tone doesn’t go along. It’s devoid of emotion, detached. He can’t stand her resignation, as if she truly thought he would go through with his threat.

“I can be cruel. But not with you. Never with you,” he says, making her look at him.

He can tell she doesn’t believe him. And how could she, after what just happened between them? How could he possibly explain the way he meant what he said?

“Let’s end this in a gentle way, shall we? Tell me whether you ever think of me at night,” he orders, still stroking her head.

She glances up at him warily. “That’s all? Just like that?”

“That’s all.”

“I do,” she admits very quietly.

“Very well. Now sleep, my little love.”