Page 45 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Blair, two years before Gatilla’s death

It began with the beating of the war drums. The appearance Palisandre’s army had given—an army still setting up; soldiers still readying themselves—it had been a ploy.

Blair jumped out of bed and donned her leathers, the screech of phantom wyverns already filling the night, the song of the summoned beasts a wild, wicked answer to the drums. She sprinted outside, braiding her hair as the first arrows came flying, piercing flesh and slicing tents. Ice-arrows. Fire-arrows.

Elven magic.

Aurora? Sofya? Blair’s eyes scanned the disaster around her, but she couldn’t find them.

Fear swamped her, ruthless and brutal fear.

Caryan. She needed to see him. She needed his guidance, his reassurance. His calm. His strength.

She was still looking when she felt a hand close around her wrist. There he was, already in his battle suit, his eyes dark but unfazed. He found her, as if he’d felt her panic.

“Cool your blood, Blair. I will be with you. Do as we discussed. Attack the front lines, try to take out the towers.”

She nodded, but his words barely registered in her fear-addled mind .

He gripped her harder, baring his fangs. “You need to pull yourself together.”

“I’m… terrified,” she admitted.

Her breath caught as he put a hand on her neck and a warm, deep calm seeped into her, anchoring her. Grounding her.

“We will see each other tonight, but now, fight. There’s no backing down now. No way back.”

Her panic was gone, replaced by his magic. She was as calm as she’d ever been, and her mind so clear. So focused.

“I will,” she agreed and walked over to her wyvern.

As the beast swung itself into the air, Blair threw out a mighty, burning shield of orange magic to block the arrows now raining down on them.

“Witches, fall into formation.” Her voice boomed over the chaos, and she could feel disorder falling into order. Into a system.

More witches joined her.

“We are witches. Let us remind them what that means,” she growled as her wyvern flew in a circle above. Finally, all the wyverns and their riders fell into formation.

“For the Blacklands!” Blair screamed, and all of them, a chorus of witches, answered, raising their swords, grinning up at her, teeth and swords glinting.

“For the Blacklands!”

***

The battle turned into an outright slaughter. Palisandre threw magic at the witches, who ripped into them like a burst dam. Blair lunged, slaying warrior after warrior, swearing at the slaughter and the tang of blood that coated her tongue. At some point, rain set in, the metal of her sword singing in the air, a melody to the screeching of her wyvern as its teeth and claws shredded flesh.

She knew then that war changed a person. Shaped them anew. Whatever dark creature she’d been before, she had turned even darker .

She readied her blade for another blow and breathed in the symphony of gore and blood and mud, trying hard not to think about her mothers somewhere on that battlefield. There were just so many high elves.

The army of elves they’d spotted had been tiny compared to what was coming for them now. Another trick from Palisandre—reinforcements waited but a day’s march away and were pouring in minute by minute, swamping the valley.

Blair stood knee-deep in mud and gore, no longer able to tell the two apart. Fatigue had long since set in, but now despair started to weaken her blows, made her shields waver.

A lot of the witches had stayed back in Akribea, too far away to reach them in time. They were outnumbered. Defeat was inevitable.

Death was inevitable.

She knew then that all the witches she brought here were going to die tonight.

She readied her blade regardless as she stared down the impossible flood of soldiers coming for her.

A crack of dark lightning divided the sky, followed by bone-shaking thunder as equally black clouds collided.

For a moment, the slaughter stilled and everyone stared.

Then a horn blasted—their signal to retreat. Blair shouted commands, her wyvern banking and cutting sharp over the battlefield. It picked Blair up in its claws and veered right back to the mountain where their camp was set and where her aunt was standing at the very edge, her wide robes billowing, her red hair flowing around her dark crown like a halo of fire.

Wyvern after wyvern shook the mountain as they landed, wings flapping, witches dismounting. Blair didn’t take the time to dismiss her wyvern when more bolts of dark lightning began to strike down from the sky. Celestial magic.

Caryan’s magic.

Huge craters and burnt flesh and soil were all that was left where they met the ground. Palisandre had no time to react, barely time to retreat or throw up their shields as a shadow fell from the sky. Blotting out the sun.

No, not a shadow. An angel with black wings.

An angel who kept butchering every single soldier, surrounded by a tornado of blackest night and chains of darkest lightning.

And, as Blair stepped next to her aunt and gazed down at the carnage, she realized that the witches had just been a distraction. A prelude.

Caryan was her aunt’s true weapon.

The only one she really needed.