Page 48 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Melody

Caryan’s sudden absence makes me snap out of it, leaving me cold. Empty. Shuddering.

I step away from Riven without another word. Without another glance. I slink through the crowd, too restless to think. What the hell just happened? I feel feverish, as if my skin is too tight for what slumbers in my veins. As if something almost tore me open. Almost left me fractured. They. Caryan and Riven.

When I swallow, my throat is still raw from Caryan…

The tattoo on my wrist burns painfully as I push further through the crowd of revelers, dancing and drinking wine from each other’s mouths. I pray they didn’t see what just happened. But no one pays me any attention, or so much as looks at me, too absorbed with each other, and I allow myself a shudder of relief.

Hells, what have I done?

Behind me, Riven is following, but slower, because people are either too dazed or too drunk to make way for him. A few startle out of their spell in sudden fear of him, falling to a knee, making obeisances.

I start to run. Air. I need air. And space. And silence.

Finally, reality sets back in. I ignore the thrill that runs through me at the sheer lunacy of what I’m about to do. Sobering me up. I’m going to run away. I’m scared. So fucking scared. But a life in shackles again—I cannot .

I push through more drunk fae, too aware that Riven is still following me. Still too aware of what we’d just done. Of the heat that’s still in my body, burning my insides. Of my restless heartbeat. The touch of his fingers between my legs, lingering.

I run even faster, diving into a labyrinth of small streets and alleyways packed with stands where fae are selling cherry wine and spiced bread. I eventually shake Riven by taking a sharp turn left, then right.

When I glance back, he’s no longer there.

I dash on, letting my strange talent guide me to the ruins. It’s terrifyingly easy. It scared me before, back with Lyrian. But no longer.

When I reach the huge gate I run even faster, throwing all my newly won strength and speed into my movements. I skitter between the dark silhouettes of the ancient, carved columns I glimpsed on our ride here.

Someone grabs my arm.

I’m caught and pushed hard against a crumbling wall. I flinch, my eyes wide, my breath short and fast from running. I swivel and stare into Riven’s eyes. They seem to burn in the darkness like dying stars, simmering with rage.

“You’re trying to run,” he snarls.

“No, I wanted to find the library,” I lie quickly.

“Liar!”

I freeze when I feel talons instead of his nails pressing into my skin, too similar to those of the men in my room that night. What the hell?

For a moment I’m too scared to deny that I wanted to run; the words die on my tongue. He knows. And he caught me just like the first time in the woods. Or the second time in the Fortress. But he’s never looked so furious before. So intimidating. So unhinged.

“You just happened to conveniently leave out the part where my mother ran from Caryan ,” I throw back at him, right into his face.

“Who told you? ”

“Does it matter?”

He bares his teeth. “I never told you because it’d have just made you try to run again. But it seems no matter what I do, you run anyways.” His hand closes around my throat then, talons grazing my skin, on the verge of drawing blood. “I warned you.”

“Please…” I whisper, suddenly terrified. I wonder how far his vow to never hurt me goes. How much he can do.

“Please what?” he asks in a cruel voice that reminds me how he made Lyrian cower and grovel with merely words and a point of his fingers. So different from his usual self. Hell, when he’s like this, it doesn’t take much to imagine why he’s Caryan’s right hand. Because he’s just as lethal. Just as deadly.

“Please don’t…”

He pushes me against the wall again, pinning my body with his, my wrists held captive above my head. But this is so different from before. He is so different.

“Don’t what?” he mocks, leaning into me.

I can’t find words. I know he’s still wild.

He grabs my chin, the talons gone. Then he kisses me.

It isn’t pretty kissing. It’s carnal, possessive, and brutal. He kisses me with his body, his teeth, his one hand still gripping me in a chokehold, opening my jaw. He snarls as I bite his lower lip so hard I taste his blood in my mouth.

But he pulls back, glowering down at me.

Good. Because I don’t want him to be like this with me. Not him. The rudeness, the brutality of it… It breaks my tiny human heart, and I want him to see this.

“Traitor.”

A male voice behind us makes Riven whip around, his blood still dripping over his chin. I scan the darkness around us but find no one.

Then a flicker in my peripheral vision. A shadow, moving.

My head snaps up and I find a figure with membrane wings rending the night like a creature out of a nightmare. Nefarians. Three more of them squatting on columns, still partly hidden by the dark. I realize that they used their wings to shield themselves, to blend with the darkness so thoroughly neither of us noticed them.

“I’d hoped you wouldn’t be here, Riven. And I’m sorry that this complicates things even further,” the man closest to us drawls. He lands smoothly on the column above us with one mighty flap of his wings. “I’m sorry that she has to die. But you know she must.”

“Touch a hair on her head and yours will roll,” Riven growls back, in a voice I’ve never heard him use before. He pushes himself in front of me, keeping me behind him against the pillar.

“Have you forgotten our ties? They run deep, whether you want it or not,” another Nefarian hisses from above, his voice echoing from the ruins.

“I do not care about our ties. You heard me. It was a last warning,” Riven snarls back.

The men exchange a glance before they step further out of the shadows.

“They’re going to attack, right now,” I whisper, not sure it will change anything if Riven knows, but I see it clearly in their auras.

Riven doesn’t wait. A wall of dark flames shoots up, surrounding us, a burning tornado reaching far up into the sky, leaving us unharmed in its middle.

But harsh, bluish-tinted wind slams into us from all sides, dousing the flames.

My senses are not fast enough to witness Riven’s shift. Huge membraned wings engulf me a second later, as he pushes himself off the ground and up into the air, me in his arms. Then he spreads them wide, and we are flying.

Riven pulls me against him and spears for the city.

“They’re coming. They’re close,” I say in his ear, loud against the air whipping past.

The Nefarians have recovered and black wings beat hard as they try to catch up. Too quickly, driven by a stream of wind-magic that brings them closer and closer, lilac magic bristling at their fingertips.

My eyes widen as Riven’s magic twists around us in a dark fire to shield us once again—and fails. Fails because of the arrow protruding from his shoulder. An arrow made of a black, thrumming metal that makes the fae part of me recoil and hiss. Hells, it went right through him.

Riven spreads his wings wide, at the same moment he presses me against him, to shield me from more arrows. A roar rips from him when they strike his legs, his wings, his back, burning holes in skin and flesh. I feel the impact, feel his powerful body barking in agony. Those beautiful, powerful wings. Shredded.

“Riven…” I breathe. Fear grips my heart and squeezes it tight. Fear, not for me, but for him.

“I’ve had worse. Now hold on tight,” he growls, but I see the pain searing his aura.

Then we’re falling.

I close my eyes as we hit the ground, sand and gravel flying all around us, filling my mouth, my lungs as we keep skidding. But I’m not hurt. Because Riven’s under me, I realize with a cold shock, his wings and back taking the collision.

In a heartbeat, he’s pushed me off him and jumped to his feet, keeping me behind him as the three Nefarians land in a crouch in front of us. Riven again spreads his shredded wings to shield me from them. Horror roils in my gut. I can only guess how much this must hurt him. The scent of his blood fills the air as it leaks out of him, seeping into the sand, the vicious arrows protruding out of his flesh in all angles. Too many to count.

“Step aside, Riven. You know too well the arrows have nullified your magic,” the first one says. He’s as tall as Riven and just as muscular, with sun-tanned skin and black hair. Now, in the low light, I can make out harsh features and the swirls of black ink that stretch over his collarbones and up to his cheeks like war paint. “And your healing along with it… even if you’re cursed . Step aside and I’ll let you live.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Riven retorts, unfazed. His breathing comes in uneven rasps as he unsheathes one long sword from his back.

The man laughs. “You’re in no state to fight. You’re only drawing the inevitable out. Step aside, and I promise I’ll make it quick. She won’t feel a thing. This is not about you. We will let you live, I swear.”

“Keep dreaming, Adriel,” Riven retorts with a snarl.

“You know, sometimes dreams come true,” the warrior drawls, then raises his hand at the same moment Riven throws a dagger he must have kept hidden in his sleeve.

The wave of building, lilac magic collapses the instant the black blade buries itself in Adriel’s heart.

The warrior’s eyes widen in disbelief, and he staggers backwards. “Nefarian steel… how?”

“You forget that nightmares are dreams too. And you just walked right into one,” Riven rasps.

“Blood runs thicker than water. We’re family, Riven,” the man says, his breath coming in sharp, dying rasps.

Riven only lifts the mighty sword in his hand. “Blood alone doesn’t make family. Love and loyalty do.” Then he looks at the two others. “ Caryan’s never going to let you leave.”

With this warning, he charges. The other two Nefarians lift their hands almost simultaneously. I freeze as a wall of wind slams into Riven, hurling him meters through the air. I watch with cold horror as he’s driven against the wall of a building, so hard it gives way and starts to crumble.

Blinding pain flares behind my ribs. All that talking had been only to stall. To buy us time. Buy me time. Riven charging with that sword against their magic—was to keep them focused on him instead of me.

Suddenly, there are screams everywhere, bright as daylight, ripping me back to reality. I hadn’t realized where we landed. Now my eyes find the empty dais to my left. The crowd has scattered, retreated to the shadows, forming a semicircle around us.

Right as a breathtaking, tanned figure plummets from the sky, landing gracefully on her long, muscular legs right between the two Nefarians. She eases into a slight crouch, as if ready to jump at any moment. Her taloned hands are curled by her side, her two huge, leathery wings tucked in tight; her long, midnight-black hair dancing on a phantom wind.

Her purple eyes, brighter and much more aqueous than Riven’s, focus on me with lethal intention.

Nefarians. The word hisses through the crowd, the smell of fear tingeing the air.

I glance back to the collapsed building, and my heart threatens to fall apart. Let him be alive. Please. Let him be alive. I won’t allow any other option.

Then I pivot on my heels and run.

I sprint towards a tiny alleyway, praying that it’s too narrow for their wings. It saved me once.

But a moment later talons dig into my arm, shredding skin. A scream rips from me as I’m hurtled to the ground again, one of the Nefarians on me. I draw Riven’s dagger and aim for his neck, the only part, save for his hands and head, that isn’t covered in hard, scaly armor.

But before the blade can find his skin, he starts to scream, the sound unlike anything I’ve ever heard before.

He lets go of me, stumbling back, spasming, his face torn in horror as every bone in his body seems to break into tiny pieces… and then even tinier ones.

He falls to his knees, then slumps headfirst into the sand in front of me, his screams subsiding to a strange kind of howling.

A shadow falls over me, and I know he’s here long before I manage to draw my eyes to him. Before I hear his growl, so visceral, so deep it roils in my bones, shakes my soul. “She. Is. Mine.”

Even the Nefarian’s howls fall silent at that. Not because he’s dead, but because of the effect of Caryan’s voice. At the pure hatred that drips from him. At the primal dominance and aggression.

Restless shadows twine around the buildings, hissing and snarling, coming in a never-ending river off his shoulders and gathering, denser and denser around us until the air is so tight it is hard to breathe.

“I’m going to kill your companions, but you—I’m not yet done with you.” Caryan’s growl gives way to a silent coldness, one that is more frightening than anything he could have done.

Eventually, I look up to him, his eyes black as his shadows, which reach out and lift up the Nefarian. His head lolls, his whole body a wobbly mass, and I realize he has been fragmented from the inside. He moans in pain at being moved, a sound animalistic and foreign and guttural.

“Oh no, you will not faint. I will not allow that. You will feel this until I decide to let you drift into oblivion for touching her like that,” Caryan says. “But before that, I’m going to heal you and do what I just did over and over again.”

Gods, help me, but I’ve never been more afraid of him than now.

I gasp as the shadows around the Nefarian grow tighter, squeezing his already shattered insides. The Nefarian’s eyes roll to me, silently begging me to help him. I’m too shocked to make a sound.

Caryan’s gaze eventually settles on me.

I have the good sense not to pull away this time when he reaches for my arm. It’s bleeding, the laceration deeper than I thought. I barely feel it though.

My heart stumbles when I glance back at his face. If I thought Caryan couldn’t get any angrier, I was wrong. There’s pure death in his eyes as he takes in my wounds.

“Stretch out your arm,” he orders in a voice bereft of anything. It’s like an abyss. Endless and black.

I do as he says, and he brings his wrist to his teeth, slicing his whole artery along the length, his blood gushing out. He drips it over my mangled flesh and I clench my teeth as the deep wounds start to knit back together.

“Riven,” I whisper, trying hard to block out the groans of the Nefarian, still writhing in the grip of Caryan’s shadows. I think I’m going to be sick right here. “He… Please, we need to look for him,” I squeeze out. It takes all I have left to look into Caryan’s eyes again.

“He is alive,” Caryan says.

Alive. I allow myself to breathe again .

“Move,” Caryan orders me, and I do, fighting hard to ignore the sounds of the tortured Nefarian behind us as I try to keep up with Caryan’s pace.

When we step out of the seclusion of the alleyway, I no longer recognize the place. All fae have retreated further to the shadows as if they might blend into them. Fear is palpable, as if the very air and the wind consist of it. But in the middle of the place, Caryan’s magic is wavering in a churning, black circle, keeping the fae out and the Nefarians in.

I briefly hesitate as we reach it, the whirling dark, bristling magic swirling up into the air before me like a wall of black smoke, streaked with chained lightning.

Caryan glances at me and, somehow, this suddenly feels like a test.

I will not be afraid.

With a deep breath, I step through. The magic bites me, but it doesn’t shatter me, doesn’t burn me to ashes as I’m sure it would most others foolish enough to try.

The two remaining Nefarians kneel on the ground, the sight so similar to the fauns last night it quickly robs my breath. Two men, the woman with Riven’s eyes in the middle. They are flanked by Ronin and Kyrith. In a group behind them, I spot the priestess, Sarynx, and a few other fae I recognize from the celebrations at the Fortress.

I nearly cry when I see Riven walking through that circle. His wings are gone, so are the arrows, his armor is torn in parts, but he’s alive and breathing… no longer bleeding. His eyes lock on mine for a second before he looks at Caryan.

With a snap of Caryan’s fingers, the whole, huge wall of magic pulls back into him. It’s a terrifying sight, but everyone suddenly comes back into view. The fae who tried to hide in the shadows step closer, drawn to the violence the same way a moth is drawn to a flame.

This is going to be an execution.

A statement. Exactly what Caryan promised them .

“We will end this tonight,” Caryan says, his voice echoing through the ancient town.

I glimpse something in my peripheral vision. Sarynx. Her aura is a thread of panic laced with the ugly, gaudy green of betrayal, gleaming bright like a beacon, catching my eye even within the sea of fear and fury.

Her. It was her, all the time. How could I not have felt it? Seen it? She wanted to get rid of me so badly. Badly enough to have me dead. I even said it to her face, that Caryan never drank her blood. So he wouldn’t have known.

Caryan follows my gaze. Sarynx’s eyes widen as she finds both of us looking at her. Then she turns on her heels and runs. Only to be caught by vines of black magic, ensnaring her ankles and dragging her back on her stomach over the ground.

She thrashes and screams as Caryan’s shadows pull her through the sand, tearing her gown and her skin, until she ends up in a bloody bundle to his feet.

Her green eyes briefly find mine before they look up to Caryan, pure pain shimmering in her utterly beautiful face. “I just wanted her gone. I wanted her to escape. It would have been for the better. For all of us,” she says, her voice a heartbreaking plea.

And no matter how much I dislike her, no matter that she tried to kill me, I can’t bring myself to hate her enough to want her dead.

She’s speaking the truth, of course she is. She did want me gone… not necessarily dead. I see her love for Caryan, her bottomless desperation that drove her to do the things she did.

“Please, Caryan,” she starts again.

There is no warning as he leans forward and lifts her by her slender neck like he once held Lyrian. A chill rakes down my spine.

His teeth sink into her flesh. Rude. Careless. He spits her blood out, as if it was poisonous, and I wonder whether he can, indeed, taste it in her blood—the betrayal, her envy. Whether the emotions of its owner tinge the flavor.

By the way his face contorts, it must.

“You were behind it. Only you,” he says .

Sarynx still dangles limp from his hand, her face a mask of pain. “I did it for us , but for her too. I never really wanted her dead,” she whispers to him. Truth, blue and resonating in her aura. “But most of all—I did it for you.”

“Please, let her live,” I say.

Again, her eyes flit back to me, surprised, before Caryan’s darkness engulfs her like a swarm. It’s over in less than a second.

All that is left of Sarynx sifts down between his fingers.

My heart can’t comprehend what I just saw. It beats so violently like it has a chance to escape my chest, to abandon my body.

Without sparing another glance at her leftovers, Caryan walks towards the Nefarians, stopping in front of the woman. Their leader.

“Caryan,” she hisses, flashing her row of sharp teeth up at him. Wanton, feral pride in her face, in her whole posture, even kneeling on the ground with her hands tied. I admire her courage.

“Shiera. What a surprise to see you,” Caryan drawls, his power pressing against my skin, prowling through the city in a wave as he looks down at her. “I must say, I thought you dead and gone.”

Shiera just laughs, haughty and breathless. “I have a gift for you, Caryan. It’s fastened to my belt.”

Caryan glances at Ronin, who steps forward and unties something big and dark dangling from a holster around her hip. It’s a metal object—the point of a massive, oversized arrow.

“I brought something for you as a reminder that we’re not.”

Ronin presents it to Caryan.

Caryan looks down at the arrowhead in Ronin’s palm, a vicious, deep snarl escaping his throat. Another prickling rumble of power follows in its wake, a thundering sound like two boulders colliding. Everyone in the crowd takes a step back, gasping for air as Caryan’s power comes crushing down like a wave. I too, briefly struggle to breathe before it eases.

“Remember this? Gatilla’s arrow. This is how you were brought down in the first place, angel,” Shiera snarls, obviously satisfied with his reaction, the slant of a smile tearing her full lips. I wonder whether she’s just gone mad or whether the knowledge that she’s going to die anyway makes her that bold.

Caryan just says, “I will bring you down. All of you.”

“All of us? I doubt that,” she hisses right back, turning to look at Riven.

He’s gone utterly still, his gaze trained on the woman like a weapon. But a streak of sharp red pierces through his aura like a spear. Pain. Searing and hot. He hasn’t bothered to veil it.

“The exception makes the rule,” Caryan responds coolly.

His shadows form around Shiera, yanking her body up to him, her right arm close, outstretched, her wrist turned upwards like an offering. A knife appears in his hand, conjured like his shadows. He cuts deeply along her extended arm, then he licks the blade.

When he’s done, he turns his attention to the other Nefarian, repeating the same procedure with him. Caryan’s eyes briefly flick to Riven, and I know that he’s seen what the man saw at the ruins the way Caryan’s gaze flits on to me and stays there for a heartbeat. Riven, kissing me. What I said to him, about my mother.

“Didn’t find what you were looking for in there, angel?” Shiera snarls, spitting at his feet.

Caryan just lazily draws his head back to her, as if she’s nothing but a nuisance. “I do not need to. That you came here, willing to sacrifice your lives, shows me that you’re running out of hope. I will wait. Wait until the last scraps of that hope have whittled down to the marrow of despair. Then I will come for you.”

He turns his back to her, then pauses, as if he just remembered something. “I promised my people a celebration tonight. Well, you are going to be the spectacle. Think of your third man—your lover, your mate , was he—while you burn and burn and burn. Know that I broke every tiny bone in his body into pieces and that I shall keep him that way until the day I come for the rest of you.”

His gaze goes back to Riven then, who still stands unmoved, his face unreadable but his aura still burning alive with pain. “Kill them, Riven. Slowly.”

I dig my nails so deep into the palms of my hands that I draw blood. I can see Riven wants to disobey the command, and briefly, I wonder why. But all he does is incline his chin in a nod. His eyes flick to me one last time, and I can barely stand the torment in them before he walks up to Shiera.

“I hope this sacrifice was worth it,” she whispers very quietly to him. A private comment.

“I can only say the same to you. Goodbye, Shiera,” Riven retorts. There’s no kindness in his face—the immovable mask of the Dark Lord’s right hand.

Then, on his silent command, I watch black flames start to eat away their clothes. My stomach turns over, my heart can’t take it. I turn away before it starts to burn their skin, slowly as Caryan ordered. I wait for their screams, but they don’t make a single sound.

I flinch when, after a felt eternity, I feel a gentle hand on my healed arm.

Riven.

He guides me away, back to the horses. Ronin and Kyrith flank us. They mount their steeds and ride back to the Fortress with us. I hold on to Stormhunter’s mane the whole time, clinging to his reassuring warmth underneath my cold body.

I can’t stop shivering and don’t, even when I’m long back in Riven’s quarters, in front of the fireplace, the flames for once red, as if, after what he’d just been forced to do, Riven couldn’t stand the sight of his magic anymore.

Eventually, he joins me, standing next to me looking down into the flames.

“You loved her,” I say quietly into the laden silence between us.

His face is unbearably sad when he looks at me. “I did. Once.”

“You… you are a Nefarian too,” I breathe.

“Half. I’m half-elf, half-Nefarian.” His answer sounds only tired. He turns away and sinks onto the sofa, leaning his head back, closing his eyes.

After a while, I get up and curl next to him. “What… what about your wings?” I whisper.

He looks down at me, his remarkable eyes serene .

I push, “You will be able to fly again.” I don’t say it like a question, because no is not an option. I know he loves flying. I would if I had wings.

He gently runs his hand over my cheek and his fingers come away wet. “I will, my little love. They will heal,” he says and finally, for the first time after this horrible night, I feel like I can breathe again.

As his fingers bury themselves in my hair, drawing lazy circles, I allow my eyes to drift shut.

“Thank you for saving me tonight,” I murmur before I drift into oblivion.