Page 5 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Blair

The iron-tipped whip digs deep into Blair’s skin, tearing the wounds that already gape there even wider. The metal clashes with her magic as it hits her blood, blocking it. At least for a while. Blair grunts, clenching her teeth so hard she wonders why they don’t turn into powder.

But no fucking way will she scream. No fucking way will she give Perenilla the satisfaction. This woman is so much like her aunt.

Blair looks up to meet Sofya’s pained stare, then dips her chin to a silent nod. Daring her to swing the whip another time. Do it. Get it over with. Or Perenilla will delight in your pain too. But Sofya looks back at her blankly, her hand not moving. Her long, whitish-blonde hair dancing in the cold wind.

Blair turns her head to see Aurora, the breathtakingly beautiful, dark-haired witch, between the other witches. Her face is a mask of agony so deep Blair feels a dark flame in her jumping to life. The face she thought she’d never see again. She’s never met her natural mother—she died giving birth to her—but Aurora has always taken her place. Aurora and Sofya, her two mothers. To see Aurora in so much pain—pain caused by Perenilla, who is forcing Sofya to whip her…

It makes Blair get back to her feet, a crazy grin plastered on her face. “Come on, do it! Do it for me!” she barks at Sofya, trying hard not to sway from the blood loss as she holds her mother’s blue stare.

Don’t give her the satisfaction.

Sofya scrunches up her perfect face before she brings the whip down one more time.

The crack reverberates from the high mountains around them like an avalanche.

And again.

And again.

Blair doesn’t look once at Perenilla, who’s following the whole scenario from the stone throne four witches have carried up from the throne room to the landing platform. The spiral tower, Cloudcleaver, made of polished onyx, reaches further up into the sky to her right, indeed scratching the clouds.

Taller than Gatilla’s Windscar ever was.

The huge, newly built tower also has an even bigger reservoir in its base. Cavern-like halls, deeply embedded in the stone the tower was built on. The new reservoir is the biggest storage unit for magic the fae world has ever seen. Brutally harvested magic for the witches to draw from, amplifying their inherent power.

“You disappointed me, Blair Alaric, oh, heir of your great aunt Gatilla,” Perenilla speaks up when it’s over, her voice ringing over the soaring wind. Mockery drenches every word.

Blair glances over at her without turning her head. Somehow she managed to keep standing. Still manages to keep her head high and her shoulders back while she pushes back the nausea and the pain that threaten to overtake her. Only iron will and honed discipline keep her from wiping out.

Perenilla’s even risen from her throne for her pretty little speech. The thin, raven-haired and ashen-skinned witch looks more like a noon wraith in her fringed robe than a queen though.

She looks small amidst the ring of the black coven that stands gathered around the throne — thirty-three of Perenilla’s closest and most powerful witches. All of them pledged to her. The ones who govern the reservoir’s magic, deciding who can draw from it and how much .

Blair’s coven—the red coven—in their black riding leathers and crimson cloaks, form a semicircle on Blair’s left side, Perenilla’s sentinels in their long, black robes billowing in the wind on her right. The robes are a clear statement of their station. Those witches never get their hands dirty. That’s what Blair’s red coven and the other covens are here for.

That’s what she’s become: Blair Alaric, the Scarlet Death, the former great heir, wing leader of all covens, now barely more than Perenilla’s personal cutthroat. The red coven, whose reputation for mercilessness and cruelty once sent enemies running, now degraded to being servants at Perenilla’s beck and call. And all the witches, merely more than starved scavengers picking through the ashes, looking for bugs because there’s no meat left to feed on.

At least Gatilla let them fly over the border to harvest once she started the war against Palisandre. Perenilla insists they limit their hunts to their dead lands, so as not to provoke any of their numerous enemies.

They can’t afford to lose another member.

Blair meets the gaze of every robed witch.

Every one of them considers her a nuisance at best—a threat to Perenilla’s throne, the root of all evil, at worst. Sometimes Blair wonders whether the sheer loyalty of Sofya and Aurora and the witches of the red coven has prevented her from having been backstabbed with a knife so far. Not that she’s ever done anything to earn it.

No, quite the opposite.

She’s such a fucking failure.

Perenilla’s voice booms again over the platform, amplified by magic. “You were sent to the human world to bring the girl from the prophecy to me.”

Melody. The girl Caryan so desperately wants. Perenilla doesn’t have to say it, everyone here knows Kalleandara’s prophecy by heart.

“Yet you dare to return empty-handed. I should let you rot in the oubliette.”

Blair’s strength falters, blackness wavering in her peripheral vision. For a second, her knees buckle. She digs her claws into the onyx beneath her, leaving deep scratches in the polished stone before she makes it back up to her feet. Cold sweat runs down in rivulets under her torn leathers, mingling with her blood that’s soaked her shredded clothes. The pain is almost too much, but hells would she cower in front of Perenilla. She’d rather bite off her own hand.

“I had to flee. The human realms have been left unchecked for too long, and dark beings have been allowed to thrive. Lyrian has managed to gather an army which ambushed me when I almost caught the girl. I had no choice but to run.”

“You could have fought.” Perenilla’s dark eyes glitter with obvious disgust and hate.

Go ahead, bitch, hate me. But I hate myself harder.

Blair holds her gaze before she grinds out, “They were too many of them.”

“You could have fought nonetheless. Yet you chose to come running back like the coward you are, Blair Alaric. You chose to tuck tail instead of fighting for your kind. The ongoing war has become a threat to our existence. That girl could change the tides of that war. It is your responsibility alone to find the means to win it. Yet you failed me. You failed all of us.”

Blair can’t help it—that hollow laugh that escapes her throat. Yes, she failed. Yes, she fucked up in more ways than possible. No, she can’t explain that this very girl saved her sorry life. But this statement is ridiculous. “Mine? Why in the Abyss’s name would it be my responsibility alone?”

Perenilla’s eyes only darken. “Aren’t you the heir of your great-aunt? And haven’t our ties with Palisandre been broken under her reign? That delicate truce severed before we witches had a chance to recover from our tremendous losses?”

“Those losses came because we killed the angels after we already lost so many witches to the Demon Wars!” Blair’s temper snaps before she can leash it. “Palisandre suffered similar losses.”

“Yet elven children are not as rare as witchlings,” Perenilla snaps back, her silver canines bared. “It was your aunt’s insatiable greed for power. Because she decided to enslave the last angel and started a war to harvest the magic of high elves with his aid. Because she couldn’t get enough. It was her hubris that made this world fall apart. That tipped the balance of magic once and for all. That made all the portals to the hells burst open and wreaked havoc on this world. Plummeted us into misery.”

Perenilla’s voice is strained, her whole body shaking with anger, her whole being bristling with a challenge Blair more than aches to meet.

Abyss help her, she bares her teeth right back at the queen. “You can’t blame this on me.”

“Caryan is her dark creation, if I am not mistaken. She worked on him with magical ink and turned him into the blood-sucking demon he now is. She bestowed on him the curse and made him a living weapon. He is the reason we need to keep harvesting magic to prepare for another war. Palisandre never forgave us, and ever since, we’ve been paying the price. We have been banned from their lands. Our trading routes cut off. Our numbers have been depleted to this tiny circle. Another war could wipe us off the face of this world, once and for all.”

Blair wants to bite out a sharp retort—but it gets stuck in her throat, along with a cracking in her heart. It’s true. She did nothing to stop this when she could have back then.

Gatilla enslaved Caryan. She inflicted it on him—the curse, enabling him to suck up magic from any creature he drank from and adopt their magical gifts and talents. He managed to break free and turn against her. He absorbed all her magic and, merging it with his own, became immortal. The dark irony was—immortality was something Blair’s aunt always tried to achieve. But she ended up dying before she could, felled by his hand.

Blair could have stopped her aunt before Gatilla could elevate herself to such an unfathomable station. Could have prevented that last, devastating war.

Or she could have killed Caryan once he was freed and still weak before the magic merged with his own .

But she did none of those things.

Because deep down, she feared her aunt and craved her praise.

Because she fell so hard for Caryan. Then she fell so hard.

Traitor. Traitor. Traitor, that ugly inner voice keeps hissing. She failed her mothers so unforgivably. Failed the witches. Failed her black coven. She could never atone, only try to protect them.

If they knew, Blair, they would abandon you. Curse the day you were born, the callous voice continues. The voice that keeps haunting every waking and dreaming minute.

Fucking useless voice.

But they must not know! No one, ever, Blair shoots back. Because the truth would harm Aurora and Sofya. And whether they love her or not, Blair will do everything to keep them safe. Anything. If she has to die for them, she will do so without a moment’s hesitation.

So she’s got to play along because silence makes you look weak. And weakness gets you killed.

“And that makes me complicit?” Blair asks in a voice she knows makes people want to throttle her. She juts up her chin, looking down her nose at Perenilla, just as her aunt had taught her to.

As an answer, Perenilla nods to Illistra, the current wing leader of the black coven and one of Perenilla’s thirty-three. An ugly witch with short-trimmed hair. A woman in the body of an ogre and with the brain matter of a squirrel, but it’s Illistra’s physical strength that is unmatched among the witches. No one challenges Illistra in hand-to-hand combat.

The hag steps forward with a grin and rips the bloody whip out of Sofya’s hand.

Then she shoves Sofya aside like a curtain. Sofya stumbles.

A vicious snarl escapes her mother’s lips. “I’ll claw your eyes out, Illistra,” Sofya growls, her clawed hand curled.

But other witches hold her mother back before Sofya can launch herself at her.

“It is a pleasure to finally punish the rabble,” Illistra drawls to Blair, her small, mean eyes glittering with ancient bloodlust.

There is no warning before the whip cracks through the air .

Blair raises her arm to block the most severe damage. The lash is merciless though. It cuts open Blair’s arm and splits part of her right hip, the iron digging in so close to the bone that Blair grits her teeth to keep herself from screaming out.

Illistra’s grin only widens as she swings the whip again.

This time, Blair reaches out and catches the tip midair. The delicate skin of her palm splits in half as the arrow-shaped end pierces it. Blair forces her fist to close around it, ignoring the pain as the iron tip bites deeper into her flesh.

“Don’t you dare whip me, witch, or I’ll peel your skin off and eat the strips,” Blair barks, as she yanks the whip towards her with enough force to send Illistra stumbling.

“Oh, that I want to see, Blair,” Illistra answers with a matching snarl and a brutal yank back. One that brings Blair closer, just as Blair estimated.

She doesn’t hesitate. She charges. She moves around Illistra, wrapping the whip around her massive neck, once, twice, before Illistra can do so much as blink.

Blair, still holding the whip’s end, places one booted foot in Illistra’s back for more leverage. Then she pulls. The straps go tight.

Illistra coughs, her face turning into a ripe shade of red.

“Want to see what, Illistra? How I cut off your ugly head with some leather strip?” Blair hisses at her ear. Then she pulls even tighter. The leather of the leash starts to cut into Illistra’s flesh.

Illistra reflexively drops her end of the whip and Blair grabs it. Now, with both ends in her hands, she pulls the straps really tight.

Illistra’s face contorts in pain, a soundless howl escapes her throat before she falls to her knees, blood running down her neck in rivulets.

The crowd has fallen utterly silent. For a moment, even the howling wind seems to halt and watch.

Perenilla stands again, her face frozen by cold rage, but her grayish eyes glisten dangerously. “Enough. Let her go.”

“Really? Just when things are getting interesting,” Blair drawls, her voice dropping to pure ice .

At her feet, Illistra is slowly dying.

“You heard your queen,” Perenilla warns.

“She’s putting on quite a spectacular show, don’t you agree?” Blair doesn’t so much as cut a glance at the queen.

The crowd draws in a sharp breath, followed by a ripple of murmurs.

Perenilla’s voice cuts them all off as it once again booms over them. “Are you disobeying my orders, Blair Alaric? I should have all witches of your coven punished for this.”

Blair lifts her head. “I’m merely reminding you that it was us , your red riders, who helped fill the new reservoir after Caryan imbibed all of Gatilla’s magic, along with the magic of the old reservoir, my queen.”

“I warn you, Blair—” Perenilla starts again.

But Blair cuts her off, turning to look at all of them—at each pair of eyes—as she says, “It is us you sent out to harvest to refill your reservoir. To cement your power. Us who you sent to hunt down high elves. My red coven who lost witches to the high elves’ swords.”

Finally, she turns back to Perenilla. The queen has her arms outstretched, her fingers splayed, shaking with strain.

Another wave of murmurs washes over the crowd as dark, raw magic begins to twine through the air around her like a snake encircling its victim before it chokes it mercilessly.

Something as wicked and dark and warped as Blair’s soul. But as it sizzles around her, Blair can’t help but notice its anger. She’s never heard of magic having emotions, but damn she can feel fury bristling right in its essence, lacing every wave, burning right down to its dark core. Something that has been broken too many times and never healed, only held together by rage. Something that feels all too familiar to herself. Interesting.

That doesn’t mean it’s not going to kill her.

It hisses and writhes around her. A raging beast that has finally been released from its cage. Eager to shred and tear and lash at everyone and everything in sight. Can she blame it? Is she any different ?

Blair swallows once, holding perfectly still.

She is going to die. This wild, arcane magic is going to crush her to dust.

Wide-eyed witches of all covens stare back at her when she looks over them one last time. Witches who once flew under her command, who fought by her side, who ransacked whole villages at her order. Some of them glower at her or bare their silver canines, impatient to see Blair being finally ended. Some others though…

Their eyes are shining with pride. Hidden, but still there.

And hope . Beautiful, precious hope.

Blair’s own eyes find Aurora’s in the crowd. Her mother’s warm eyes are wide with shock. The witch silently shakes her head, as if she can deny what will inevitably come next.

Blair’s head snaps down to Illistra at her feet as the witch lets out a last, pain-laced breath. Blair leans over her. “I did this for my mothers, Illistra. You owe me your life now, because the wind itself knows I could let you die. You will protect them when I’m gone,” she whispers so quietly only the ugly witch can hear.

Then she lets both ends of the whip slide out of her bleeding palms.

Illistra draws in precious air but Blair no longer watches her, turning her attention to Perenilla and her stolen magic all around her.

She is going to die.

She will face it like the warrior she is.

She meets Perenilla’s eyes. “Shall we start? I think the crowd’s tired of waiting.”

But to Blair’s surprise, Perenilla says, “Yield now, Blair Alaric. I will give you one last chance and bestow pardon on you if you kneel and apologize.”

A pardon. Why?

Blair can’t stand the naked plea in Aurora’s eyes as she glances back at her. The plea to kneel. To grovel. To subjugate again. Can’t stand to see her mother’s desperation. Blair knows her death will devastate her mother.

She draws her gaze back to Perenilla once again, the magic around her growing denser and denser by the minute. Slithering over her skin, licking up her fingers, twirling tighter around her, as if she’s fallen into a pit full of tiny, deadly snakes.

Why don’t you bite? she asks it.

Why don’t you bite, Blair Alaric? You are a witch, after all, it seems to whisper right back.

Blair stares at the warping shadows. Is that real? No. You can’t talk to magic. But then, dryads and nymphs do that all the time, don’t they? When they ask the world for rain or a good harvest.

So she asks , What do you want me to do?

Silence greets her. She closes her eyes, and Abyss, just then, the magic whispers again. Over and over and over. Take me. Claim me. Wield me.

I can’t. You’re not mine.

I am no one’s anymore. But we both want the same. Vengeance.

I’m not strong enough, Blair argues, but all the magic chants is , Free me. Unleash me.

I can’t. I’m just a witch… Blair contradicts.

Just a witch… just a witch. The magic cuts her off with another chant, sung by a thousand different voices and none at all. Soundless. She knows only she can hear it. Just a witch. Just a teeny-tiny witch. Mocking.

If you don’t have anything useful to say, fuck off, she shoots back, and with a last, grounding breath, opens her eyes again and draws them back to Perenilla. She knows what she has to do.

Her mind slides to a calm and cold place. Her voice is bright and clear as the first snow as she says, “I won’t apologize for what we did for you. I made a mistake, and I hereby accept my punishment. But my aunt’s actions are not my hereditary sin nor that of the red witches.”

The crowd starts to scream, hissing and snarling and cheering, those primal sounds vying with each other.

“Well, then stare down the execution, Blair,” Perenilla cuts through all of them.

Blair braces herself for the pain, for the magic to rip into her .

But a scream to her right sends her reeling. Sofya is on her knees, the tornado of dark magic swirling around her. Her mother’s breathtaking face is torn in pure agony. “No. Stop this!”

“I said you need to yield and apologize or there will be an execution. You demanded the execution, Blair,” Perenilla responds, her voice like ice.

“No! Please.” Blair falls to her knees, but Sofya keeps screaming and screaming and screaming as the magic starts to slowly tear her apart.

“No! Stop it! Stop it!” Blair’s screams cut through the turmoil, through that hateful, deadly tornado around her mother. She’s no longer saying the words to anyone. She just needs this to stop.

She mashes her eyes shut like she did when her car collided with the water. “ Stop it! I do anything. Anything, but stop it!”

Suddenly, Sofya’s quiet. Utterly quiet. So are the rest of them.

No. I can’t. Blair can’t look and see Sofya’s torn body. Can never look at Aurora’s shattered heart.

She will kill Perenilla. She’s going to kill her for this. She’s going to stop all of it! A fiery determination smothers every other thought or instinct in her, filling her up.

But when she opens her eyes, Sofya is still in one piece. Her bright eyes are huge, but her face is bereft of pain. The magic has paused, swirling but softer, as if suspended in the air. Hovering. Waiting.

Blair glances at Aurora, who’s wearing the same expression. Shock. Horror. Then at Perenilla, who has a strange look of frustration on her face. Her pale forehead is glistening with sweat, her whole body trembling as if she’s trying to crush Sofya, but…the magic won’t obey. It is fighting her…

“I hereby pardon you, Sofya Merrygold. In the name of what you witches did during the years of darkness, what you did for all of us, I pardon you,” Perenilla says, lowering her arms eventually. The magic is gone in an instant. “Now, bring Blair Alaric to the dungeons. She might want to spend some time down there and think about what she’s done and how terribly she failed. ”

Perenilla turns on her heels and strides away, not once looking back as the robed witches grab Blair. She’s hauled to her feet, still stumbling from the blood loss, leaving a gory trail all the way past the reservoir, down and down into the very black heart of the tower.