Page 42 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Melody

I wake up with a vague sense of disorientation. Last night feels like a dream. The desert, the worm. Caryan whispering all those things into me. The only reason I know it was not a dream is that I never remember my dreams.

I’m in an opulent room, velvety curtains drawn. I blink against the shy daylight that comes in through a slit, dipping the room into an aqueous twilight. A bed, heavy brocades and silken sheets under my fingers. Tapestries and carpets cover a wall paneled with dark, shining wood. They show magical forests and creatures hiding in them. Badgers, their fur an eerie red, silvery foxes with shiny wings, deer with one horn between their antlers, and wolves with sable teeth. A bear with curled horns carrying a scarlet peacock in his mouth.

My gaze sweeps away over a landscape of sofas, a fireplace made of onyx—more magical creatures carved into it—fat pillar candles next to piles of heavy books on every scattered table.

So different to Caryan’s purist, modern rooms. These are dark and artistic and lyrical. I could spend hours just looking at the tapestries.

Just then does the rest of last night come to me. The game with Riven—if I could call it that. I could feel the dark magic around us. Ancient and unforgiving. The way he begged me not to push. The way his lips became stained with his blood. Only then did I understand.

The magic hurt him. I hurt him. I made him bleed.

I suddenly turn around, only to find the other side of the bed empty.

I let out a long breath, horrified, shuddering as I remember everything else. His sudden, dark fury when I finally relented. The way he slid over me then. The way his body moved over mine. The feeling of his muscles pressing me into the mattress, hard. The way he held my wrists.

He’d been furious. I’d glimpsed the rage in his amethyst eyes. Rage I understood too well. Coming from humiliation.

How it felt when you were utterly at someone’s mercy.

The fear of what someone might do. Not knowing how much farther he would go. The embarrassment of being unable to resist. The desperation.

I bury my face in my hands. I never wanted that. I just didn’t understand how serious, how binding, a bargain was. How dangerous. How fatal.

I thought he’d pay me back, but he was gentle in the end.

I get up, suddenly restless.

I find an opulent bathroom with a bronze bathtub already filled with fragrant water, a toothbrush next to the sink, a beautiful hairbrush, and right next to it a steaming cup of cappuccino. A truce.

He forgave me.

Against everything, I have to suppress a smile, brush my teeth, and then take the still-hot cup with me in the bathtub.

***

There’s still no trace of Riven when I run down the corridor half an hour later. But I’m very fast, although my whole body still aches from yesterday’s trip to the desert. Faster than I’ve ever been in the human world. My reflexes are quicker too, I realize, as Nidaw steps out right in front of me, and I slide to a halt, almost bumping into her.

She crosses her arms in front of her chest, her silvery eyebrows raised. I cringe.

“Do I want to know why you come running down the hallways as if chased by wolves?”

“I’m faster,” I breathe. I can tell her, right? “Faster than I’ve ever been. I mean, in the human world. And I ran a lot .” I felt it when I fought Kyrith. When I pulled the dagger out of the sheathe on his belt and sliced down his arm. I was impossibly fast for a human. Back then I blamed it on adrenaline, but…

“Of course you are. You’re half-fae. Your strength and speed increase due to the exposure of magic. Probably your sense of smell too,” she says, suddenly gentle, as if I’m a small child who just discovered how to walk, a bemused smile playing around her lips.

“That means I’m as fast as you?”

“I don’t know, my little one. Only time will show,”she says, still soft. “But what I do know is that you are late. Now come. We have work to do.”

***

I cut vegetables until Nidaw shoos me and the others to clean some rooms I’ve never been in before. I notice the servants are strangely quiet around me. I do my best to ignore them, yet the day stretches out too long, seemingly endless.

It’s only in the languorous afternoon hours, when the other servants start to bow deeply or even fall to their knees, that I notice Riven has entered. I’m still on my knees, on all fours, polishing the floor when he strides through the hall, only to stop right in front of me.

This morning, I thought he might no longer be angry with me, but looking up into his stern, set face now I’m not so sure anymore. He’s just as breathtakingly beautiful as ever, frighteningly tall, his short ink hair just a touch messy yet his kohl-rimmed amethyst eyes are cold as they take me in. He reminds me too much of last night and it scares me.

I fear what he might do to me. Might he still decide to punish me? I realize that I expect him to, no matter how much I want to tell him how sorry I am. That I just didn’t understand until it was too late. That I never wanted to harm him in any way.

But then he holds out an elegant hand, his lips purring, “Hello, my beautiful, little darling. May I help you up? You look a bit lost down there.” His tone is gentle, his eyes a touch softer.

I get up without taking his hand, though, still not trusting it. He licks his lips, annoyed, his fangs flashing. And suddenly I’m too aware of the other servants listening. Watching—how I’m looking a high lord straight in the eye with my chin raised high.

When Riven cuts them a glance and snarls, “Leave us,” they scatter in all directions, almost stumbling over themselves.

“Dramatic.”

“Oh, one must know how to keep the gossip about you and me going,” he drawls, looking back to me.

“Is there—gossip?” I ask, blushing against my will, but I refuse to look away.

His jaw is still set in that regal, elegant way, his eyes still blazing, but a smile plays around his lips now as he leans in and twirls a strand of my hair around his finger. A smile I’m not yet sure about either, as ambiguous as the sea.

“I’m sure there is. How else would they explain that you still smell of me other than that you came to my bed last night?”

“It’s not like I had much choice,” I grind out, fighting the embarrassment flushing up my whole body, although I know he’s just toying with me. Do I—still smell of him? I resist the urge to sniff my hair.

“Oh, it certainly looked different last night,” he purrs. “I remember that it was you who came to me first.”

“I did it to win you around and take me to Niavara,” I contradict, glowering at him. I would love to wipe the haughty expression off his face .

“Did you?” Before I can pull back and come up with a sharp retort, he’s grabbed my chin. He leans down to me. “My sweet little villain, I know you can lie, but your eyes cannot.”

This time I refuse to blush. “Maybe I’m just a very good actor.”

He frowns slightly but lets go of me. “If you are, you certainly won’t mind keeping up appearances a little longer. Attend the celebrations tonight, with me.”

I have to look away to be able to say the next words, and they still don’t come out as cold as I wish they would. “You can’t really tell me that you want to be seen with a slave.” A human. Whatever.

“Maybe I do.”

I shake my head. “You just have to babysit me again and want to go.”

When he says nothing, I look back to him, a strange pain echoing through my whole body. One that makes me long for my bed. For my sheets. Makes me want to slip under them and hide from the world.

“Can’t it be both?” he asks finally, as unfazed and melodious as ever.

I suddenly envy him for it, all of them, for their fae hearts and fae looks, all as unbreakable as stone, laughing about a mortal like me and my silly mortal feelings.

“It can, but it’s not,” I state dryly.

“We can pretend,” he counters.

“Sure. I can be a pretty slave for one night and then happily go back to being an ordinary slave tomorrow.” He brushes an invisible fleck of dust off his black shirt before his eyes survey me again.

“It’s entirely up to you whether you want to attend as an ordinary slave, although I’d much prefer you in something more exquisite. You’re going to be with me, after all,” he says, flashing me a cold grin that makes me all the more aware of how common I look compared to him. Not even the most beautiful dress will change that.

“Yeah, you know what—I don’t want to go. Just have some guards watch my room, I promise I won’t break any more wards, or try to run.” I turn away but he grabs my wrist .

“Maybe I want you by my side tonight.”

I let out a snort. “All those maybes . You don’t.”

He lets go of me and I turn away.

He says to my back, “A pity. I’m not allowed to leave you unsupervised, and I’d really hate to ask Kyrith to look after you tonight.”

I swivel and glower at him. He just lets out a chuckle . Bastard.

“Just as I thought. I see you later, my little darling. Oh, and I think you’re going to love the dress I had made for you.”

He turns on his heel and strides elegantly away. Before he reaches the door, I pick the brush from the floor and hurl it at him.

He stops but doesn’t stir as it hits the wall mere inches from his head.

“You know, you could at least have the decency to turn around when someone throws something at you,” I seethe as he just walks on as if nothing ever happened.

He pauses and glances over his shoulder. His eyes glisten with dark amusement that somehow only makes it worse. “Why would I, when I heard you aim to miss?”

“Because I’m a human and can’t aim?”

He looks genuinely surprised. “No. I can only speculate about your motivations, but I do like to think because you didn’t wish to.”

“Maybe I did,” I say, still furious.

“Maybe, but unlikely, since your dagger had no problem finding Kyrith’s shoulder, am I right? I do look forward to later tonight, Melody.”

Then he’s out the door.

***

Nidaw enters later, slipping into the bathroom while I steam in the soothing waters, only to dress me in something totally different from what all the other servants are wearing. It’s a loose dress made of silk, soft and semi-sheer, stitched with golden ornaments that hide my body just so, and so light on my skin that I feel naked. It hangs loose on me, only held by two pins at my shoulders, and cut so deeply at the back that I blush as I look at myself in the mirror.

The dress—it has the confidence of a seductress and the lightness of a nightgown.

I cannot, will not wear it. I catch Nidaw’s gaze, shaking my head at the siren. “I can’t wear this.”

“You look breathtaking in it,” Nidaw says with a questioning tilt of her head. “Lord Riven had it made especially for you.”

“I know. But that’s not me,” I say quietly, self-consciously. Forcing myself to look back at Nidaw. I want to wear pants, something I can run and climb and fight in. Something I can hide a knife in. Definitely nothing that makes me feel even more vulnerable than I already do.

“It is you,” the siren contradicts.

“I can’t,” I repeat. “I won’t.”

Nidaw clicks her tongue. “The high lord suspected you would say exactly that. And he said I should tell you that the dress is wild and beautiful—just like you are. That’s why he chose it. But if you should not feel comfortable, you are free to wear whatever you please, he assured me. He wants you to feel comfortable,” she adds the last part in a tone that makes it very clear that she doesn’t at all agree with Riven and only says it because he ordered her to.

Riven said that I’m wild and beautiful? I don’t know how to respond. Don’t know whether I should believe it. But they can’t lie, so…

I glance down at that dress.Then I look at Nidaw, who gives me a reassuring smile in return.

“Come, let’s get your hair done first, and then you can decide,” she offers kindly.

She sits me down at the vanity, painting my lips and eyes silver before she puts some magnificent peacock feathers in my hair, the color matching the azure and emerald glitter around my eyes and on my temples.

Eventually, Nidaw stands behind me as I look at myself one last time in the huge mirror next to the vanity .

The dress is indeed dreamlike. I want to strip it off. Want to slip into something less extravagant, something less revealing.

But Nidaw puts her clawed hands on my shoulders, meeting my eyes in the mirror. “You look like an elf,” she states, proudness in her voice. “Like an elven princess.”

“I am not,” I respond quietly.

Nidaw frowns at me before she combs with loose fingers through my hair, as if to fix some stray strands. “You are not? Your mother was the daughter of a king. It may be time that you follow in her steps.”

“What?”

Instead of an answer she takes my fingers and leads me to the door of the bathroom before whispering, with another knowing smile playing around her bluish lips, “But most of all—have fun, my little one. Life can be dire enough.”

She ushers me out into the corridor before I can ask her more about my mother. Or tell her I’ve changed my mind about the dress.