Page 50 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Melody

I wake up in Riven’s bed in the morning. He must have carried me there after I fell asleep again. When I turn, I find him sleeping right next to me, his torso still naked, his dark hair disheveled. His face is free of the strain I saw on him last night. Of the pain. The honesty. All the horrors of the past.

I shudder against what I’d seen last night—that act of unspeakable brutality and cruelty, etched into his back forever. That anyone could have done this to him—it makes me sick to my very bones. And angry.

I turn to the side to watch him for a while, then get up as quietly as possible. I shower in my room and change into fresh clothes before I join Nidaw in the kitchen.

To my surprise, everything is as always: loud, hectic, the servants chatting with each other. Everly throws me an apologetic glance over the kitchen isles while everyone is busy preparing piles of unreal-looking food.

There will be more celebrations tonight.

I don’t know what I expected, but not that everything would continue as if nothing had happened. Obviously, none of them has heard about the attack last night in Niavara. Or the executions. Or maybe they just don’t care. Maybe it’s part of their nature, after all. I think of the way their eyes shine when they see blood and shudder .

I’m nervous though. Agitated. On edge. Caryan saw everything in Sarynx’s and Shiera’s blood. That I wanted to escape. I don’t know what that means for me. Whether there will be consequences. I guess all I can do is wait.

***

I’m tense all day, part of me waiting for Ronin or Kyrith to come get me and throw me into the dungeon. But nothing happens.

Later, Nidaw comes to me to put me in the bath and get me ready for the night shift as usual. But this time, the mood in the bath is different as I enter. The sirens seem looser, grinning and smiling, chatting with each other while they wash and dry me. Then they start to press their golden hands down my body as some sort of decoration before they paint flowers on my cheeks and around my eyes, over my temples, and up to my eyebrows, matching similar artwork on their own skins.

When I cast a questioning glance toward Nidaw, she says, “Tonight, the new moon cycle started. We all are allowed to dress up while we serve, to celebrate too.”

“Magnolia, wisteria, violets, and snowdrops,” a siren with slightly greenish hair declares, giving me a wide smile of her small teeth before Nidaw waves her off.

They chuckle like children with a secret while they scatter out of the room. I envy them for their lightheartedness. I know that I’ve never been that way.

“Before you came, they said you look like an elf from the Enchanted Forest,” Nidaw explains when they’re gone, smiling to herself while she braids strands of my hair and entwines them with each other in a beautiful but complicated pattern, the rest of my hair falling loose. Then she starts to weave in some gold and silver filaments again.

“The Enchanted Forest?” I ask out of politeness. I don’t want to spoil her mood.

“Yes. They find the elves from there the most beautiful,” she answers, her hands gently combing strands away from my neck. Her smile is warm when she meets my eyes in the mirror, as if she senses my restlessness.

“The High Lord Riven is from there,” she adds before she releases me, but not without another long, knowing glance toward me. And I can’t help but think how little they know about Riven and his past; that they probably don’t know the truth.

Then I wonder how much they talk about me and him. Again, I think of his lips on mine last night, his hand in my hair, on my neck. The way he…

“Where are the angels from?” I ask to distract myself.

Nidaw stiffens slightly, but then rolls her tiny shoulders as if to shake off some tension. “We don’t know. They just fell from the sky one day.” She starts to apply some more gold dust on my cheeks with a furry brush.

Finally, she touches the tip of my nose with her finger. “We also say the angels are made of stardust. That’s why they’re so beautiful. And now, it’s time to leave, my little fairy girl,” she says, ushering me out.

***

It’s the same as all the other nights of the celebrations save for last night. All the high lords are present in the ballroom, as fauns with impressive, scimitar-like horns tipped with gold and silver carry huge bowls with dark flames around. Some fae burn incense that emits a heavy smoke. It seems to take the edge off everything, and guests gather around to inhale it, their eyes glazing a little.

I occasionally watch Riven, who is lounging in one of the seats with a dramatic flair. He looks so aloof, so untouchable, so otherworldly and cold and infinitely amused it’s hard to believe that he can be different; is different, for that matter. Or is he, really? Or is this, between us, just another game? Am I just a game for him?

A lot of women of all kinds—horned, hooved, winged—are gathered around him, throwing him long, longing glances, laughing and joking while they pass smaller pots around, holding the same incense as the larger ones. Their pupils widen after they have inhaled their share, their bodies becoming lax and their movements slower, lazier.

Twice I meet Riven’s eyes. His fingers glide back down the naked, silver-colored spine of a lavender-skinned, emerald-winged pixie, who has propped her head in his lap while he sips from a golden goblet, the liquid in it tingeing his remarkable eyes red.

My heart aches.

As if last night never happened.

I avert my gaze quickly when I spot Caryan with another breathtakingly beautiful elf woman with long, dark hair next to him. Her hand rests on his arm as she laughs about something. I wonder whether she’s the woman from last night, from the celebrations. But I shake the thought off.

Yet it’s hard to look away for long. They’re the most beautiful couple in the room, as if their presence drinks all the light from the other glorious creatures around them. And for a second, I find it hard to breathe.

At that very moment, Caryan looks over to me, as if he’s sensed me watching, sensed my discomfort. I stare back too long, my eyes wide, before I snap out of it and flee into the kitchen.

***

The last rays of sun dip the terrace in a mystical gleam before they pull back and the fiery ball almost disappears behind the bluish peaks of the mountains undulating in the distance. I chew on a piece of honey-spiced bread I sneaked from the chef before I slinked out of the kitchen unnoticed to watch the sunset.

Caryan comes striding out. He looks over at me as if, again, sensing my presence. As if he knew I was here all along.

“I’m sorry—I was just taking my five-minute break,” I say hastily, jumping to my feet to run back inside. Run from him.

“Stay.” An order. Cold .

I slowly sink back onto the marble balustrade where I’ve been sitting, hidden in the shade, the stone comfortingly warm under my body. Maybe the only warmth I’d get for a long while. I take a deep breath.

Have it out now.

Because I need to know, and because diplomacy has never been my strong point, I ask, “Are you going to throw me into the dungeon?” I ran around all day feeling like I was living on borrowed time. And I’m tired of waiting.

“What if I do?”

“I would offer you another bargain,” I say quietly. I thought about that during the long shift today. But there is nothing else I can offer that he could want from me, nothing he doesn’t already have.

“Would you?” he asks, stepping closer.

It’s the threat in his tone that makes my head snap up. I find it hard to meet his eyes though after last night.

They’re dangerous, and I try hard not to remember how his magic felt in my mouth. How he felt…

The cold way he looked at me while he did it.

The man my mother ran from.

The man who killed his lover without a moment’s hesitation.

My treacherous heart skips a few beats, and I look down again. “Please don’t. I never saw a sunset until I came here, never felt the sun on my skin.” Because it was always raining. Panic makes speaking hard, but no matter how hard I fight it, my past pushes back. Unwanted. Lyrian. The bunker. My cell. The cold. The darkness. The endless nights, locked away and chained, all alone with my dark, desperate thoughts and only fear to keep me company.

But that time still ravages me, and will probably always, in some moments. A fissure, a crack, running through my soul.

“My lord…” A purring voice behind him makes me jolt up. It’s the dark-haired elf. “Oh, servant ,” she says when she sees me, her eyes narrowing. “Since you’re already here, why not bring me some raspberry wine with rose petals. ”

I glance at her, briefly repulsed by the haunting similarity in our appearances. She’s wearing a breathtaking blue dress that reveals more than it hides, fluttering around her perfect body. For another bizarre second, she reminds me too much of Sarynx, the eagerness in her eyes, the awe when she looks at Caryan.

I just nod, not trusting my voice. I slither past them and inside, returning outside a few minutes later with her order. The woman doesn’t so much as glance at me when she takes the drink. Neither does Caryan, again entrenched in a conversation with several other fae who have formed a semicircle around them. In the distance, I make out Riven, a beautiful purple-haired pixie woman by his side this time, also lost in conversation. More people have gathered on the terrace now that the sun has set.

Caryan didn’t give me an answer. I glance one last time up to the beautiful sky, trying to memorize everything, the stars so close they look as if you could pluck them from the firmament like silver berries, then I return inside. Nobody notices me sneaking away and out of the ballroom, heading for the bathrooms before anyone can see the tears streaming down my cheeks.

I shouldn’t cry. But all I can think is why Caryan couldn’t just have let the worm eat me. Didn’t Riven warn me that fae don’t feel the way humans do?

I suppress more tears.

I’m tired. Just so tired, and my panic is more present than ever, swamping me. I want to spray cold water onto my face, but then remember the flowers on my cheeks. Those beautiful flowers the servants painted on me. Such a stark contrast to all the violence, my dark thoughts.

I wipe the tears away and gather myself. I need to go back, or Nidaw will notice my absence and chide me. I straighten my dress and step back out into the twilight of the corridor before I walk back to the kitchen.

My hands are still shaking when I start to line up glasses on a tray, and one slips through my fingers. Shards fill the sink, and I cut myself as I fish them out .

I’m an idiot, cutting myself again.

I curse quietly when Nidaw steps next to me, handing me a clean kitchen towel to wrap around the cut. When she asks me whether I’m alright, I can’t look at her. Can’t look at her pitying face without starting to cry again.

So I just nod, quietly promising to clean up the mess. Nidaw shoos me away and tells me to go to a healer to have the cut seen to.

I don’t, but I’m glad to have been let go. I venture through the darkness, my breathing easing a little in the quiet of the halls. In one of the patios I pause.

I climb onto the rim of the marble fountain, dangling my bare feet in the cool water while I press the kitchen towel hard on the cut, willing it to heal. I close my eyes for a moment, listening to the soothing splatter of water.

“There you are.”

No other voice has ever had that effect on me. And never will, I know. The deep, melodious tone like a cruel mocking in my ears, a perverse mirror of the ridiculous, cruel beauty of his face.

Caryan. He snuck up so quietly I didn’t hear a thing. But then, I’m only a half-elf-something, so why the hell would I?

I have never fit in anywhere, not in the human world, and sure as hell not here.

I bite the inside of my cheek, not able to look at him. Knowing I’m being unacceptably rude for a slave, ignoring my master or owner or whatever the word for this fucked-up relationship is. Knowing too well he won’t let such behavior pass and that it certainly won’t help my cause.

“You’re hurt,” he says, no softness in his voice now.

“Just a cut,” I murmur, trying to twist further away from him.

He steps up behind me. “Let me see it.” His voice is commanding but I don’t move.

“So bossy?” I ask instead, knowing I’m overstepping.

He snarls his response. “Show me. That’s an order.”

As if on cue, a ripple of power slithers along my bones, but I ignore that too. How can I explain that I feel unable to turn around, to look at him, to face him without starting to cry again?

I freeze when I feel his hands in my hair. His fingers brush against my neck before he pulls my head back just as he leans in, exposing my throat, his lips right next to my ear.

My pulse skyrockets.

His voice is a quiet growl that shouldn’t affect me the way it does. “Ignore me one more time, and I will show you exactly how bossy I can be.”

I slowly turn then, taking my feet out of the water one by one and sliding around so I’m facing him. I keep my head trained on the jasmine bushes behind him. He grabs my arm, unwrapping the kitchen towel, and I suck in a sharp breath as a pain I haven’t felt until now jolts through me. Maybe the cut is deeper than I thought. From the look of the blood-soaked kitchen towel, it probably is.

“You weren’t going to the healers, were you? As Nidaw told you to.” His tone is another growl, his fingers holding my delicate wrist like a vise. I know I’m going to have bruises tomorrow.

How the hell does he know everything? He must have overheard it. Probably smelled my blood and trailed my scent.

“It’s not so bad,” I retort between my teeth, sharply. I shouldn’t talk to him that way, shouldn’t push it further. But I’m just so angry. Partly from the pain, partly at myself, at them, at Lyrian and Riven and my mother and everyone else on this planet, or the other, or however this place works.

I just want to be left alone. I just want some peace.

“It is bad, given that you are surrounded by blood-sucking creatures. You act carelessly when you choose to ignore every warning I give you,” he hisses back, even angrier than I am. “And where is Riven? He should have accompanied you.”

“I thought the threat was over. And I can walk on my own, without a babysitter. As you know, I’m not a child anymore.” Hells, I don’t know what’s gotten into me.

Caryan’s eyes shift, a horizon darkening. “You’re not? But you’re behaving like one just now. ”

His words hurt, hit me harder than they should. Maybe this is why I snap, “Yeah? Maybe I’ll stop when you stop treating me like one.”

I shouldn’t have said that. Definitely shouldn’t use that tone. Shouldn’t bare my teeth and glower up at him the way I do. But the alternative is breaking down and crying. And I’m not sure I would ever get back up again.

His eyes morph into a blazing amber, his teeth bared right back at me. “You want me to stop? Then I will—”

Before I know what he’s doing, he’s wrenched my bleeding wrist between us, closer to his lips. Then he… licks it. No teeth, just his tongue, running along the inside of my wrist like the flame of a lighter. I hold perfectly still, mesmerized by the sight of his mouth on my flesh.

He closes his eyes, as if he’s enjoying it. For the first time, I have the chance to watch him closely, without a rush, without the full weight of his attention, without it being forbidden.

He’s so supernaturally beautiful. So beautiful I probably wouldn’t even fight it if he killed me right now, just for the sake of watching him a little longer.

The slight mauve of his eyelids, feathery, dark, long lashes. His ears… those perfectly, strange arched ears I find I want to touch as desperately as those wings that are hidden again.

My eyes wander back to his delirious lips. To those cruel, perfect lips and strong, long fingers around my wrist. The sight shifts me.

I know I shouldn’t be feeling this way. I should hate him for what he almost did at the maze. What he did last night. What he’s no doubt going to do.

I gasp when he starts to gently suck at the cut. At the stream of his dark power that emanates from where his mouth lies on my skin and flows into my body, an exchange for the blood running out of me into him. And again, it’s no longer that bristling current, but milder. My own body responding to it, as if it’s made for this. Coming awake. My own blood singing to his. Sharpening every sense of myself in all the wrong ways.

Yet a tiny part in me suddenly startles when I think of the faun chef, Arbor, and what he swore to me in the kitchen. About all my moments alone with Riven. A cold shiver goes through me because that tiny part is terrified of what happens if Caryan sees this.

But then Caryan opens his eyes again, and they’re a hypnotic alloy of gold and red. And yet another, absurd, stupid, dark part of me feels a deep satisfaction when I should probably be frightened. No, I should definitively be frightened. But right now, I can’t bring myself to be.

He lifts his lips away from me eventually. His thumb grazes my healed skin one last time, gently, before he lets me go.

When I can’t stand the intensity of his eyes any longer, I look down again, at my wrist, at the unharmed skin there, and whisper a breathless, “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” he says, his voice a timbre that unravels me completely.

I shake my head, trying to return to sobriety, to find that earlier anger I want to use like a shield. But there is none, as if he has sucked it out of me. I feel drunk on him .

I grapple for any clear thought, for words, as I ask, “What did you see in my blood this time?”

To my great surprise, I find a look of frustration on his face.

“Nothing,” he answers eventually.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It might be that you didn’t give me permission,” he muses, as if to himself.

“What? How?” I blurt out.

He frowns and I can see him debating whether to give me an answer. I didn’t really do anything before. It was just a tiny part of myself begging my blood not to reveal itself. It was barely more than a thought. But then, when I broke through those wards, my body did it all on its own accord too. It didn’t feel hard, but rather, natural .

Caryan says, “We call it shielding. The ability to shield oneself against magical invasions of all forms.” I’m not sure I trust my ears when he adds, “I’ve heard of this happening, but never witnessed it firsthand when it came to my magic and abilities.” He doesn’t sound angry though, but rather intrigued. His eyes are crystal clear as they seem to take in every inch of me then. As if he can find the answer somewhere in my face. As if I’m a mystery, a riddle to solve.

“So… you never met anyone who could shield themself from your magic?” I repeat, not sure I heard him right.

“No, I have not. This is interesting .” He holds out a hand to me. “Come. I wanted to show you something before you cut your hand.”

I stare at his outstretched hand just like on that night when he found and saved me in that maze. I surprise myself by gently putting mine in his. He keeps holding it as he leads me back into a dark corridor and then further along into another one I’ve never seen before. Steps lead down to a massive door that unlocks on his silent command, opening out into another vast garden, even bigger than the one we were in yesterday.

The smell of oranges and lemons and persimmons suddenly hangs thick in the air, emanating from the huge, ripe fruits on the trees above my head. Caryan leads me through hip-high flowers in all shades of the rainbow, crystal dust shimmering on their petals. I can still see everything perfectly clearly, although there’s no source of light anywhere close.

“Night vision,” he explains, as if he’s read the thoughts from my face. “All fae have it,” he adds.

He gently guides me into a meadow under huge trees that shouldn’t be able to grow in these conditions. Their roots are huge, sprawled around them in waves like some sort of strange legs.

“Milkwood.” Caryan again answers my silent question. “They remind me of home, so I had them planted here. They can move, not far, but a little if they want.”

“Home?” I ask.

His eyes darken a touch and his voice becomes deep and raw. A ripple goes over his aura. I’m not sure, but it might be nostalgia. “What I remember of home, that is.”

“You don’t remember much?”

I watch the soft blue in his irises leaking into the gold-red whirl as he keeps looking at the trees.

I can’t read his tone when he says, “I am old. When you reach my age, you lose a lot of things in the process, but sometimes fragments remain. One of them is the memory of those trees.”

Again he laces his fingers with mine and leads me on through those endless, unreal gardens, through a patch of forest so dense that shadows disappear before we reach a clearing. And I have the feeling I’ve stepped into a living painting.

There are so many different hues and shades, so many flowers and bushes and trees; fat grapes of wisteria winding along low branches, wild blackberries and raspberries glistening in-between like jewels adorned with thorns.

Caryan lets go of my hand and sprawls so casually in the silvery silk-soft grass that for a moment, I just stare. Stare at the picture in front of me, at the beauty of him, a creature so undeniable fairy. His skin milk-white, his hair black like ink, moonlight threading through it, touching his devastatingly beautiful face with those sharp, pointed ears, as he lies there, strangely relaxed as if no one was watching him, surrounded by impossible nature.

And I know that one day I’m going to paint this scene. One day, if I ever feel confident enough to capture his otherworldly grace, the alabaster hue of his skin and the way his veins shimmer through. I stay a moment longer, trying to memorize every detail, every facet, before I match him, lying down on my back, close but not too close.

“This is what I wanted to show you,” he says over the wild song of frogs and cicadas, one arm tucked behind his head; with the other, he’s pointing to the stars. “Starfall. Tonight is the peak of the equinox. It’s the time when the stars rain from the sky.”

Indeed, as if having waited for his words, stars do begin to fall, leaving long, glittering trails like silver fireworks, each one longer and brighter than the last .

“In the human world, we believe you can make a wish for every shooting star you see,” I say quietly. Not that I’ve ever seen one so big and so close. Not when it had always been raining at Lyrian’s.

“Then I think you can make a lot of wishes tonight,” he answers darkly.

“I think I do need a lot,” I admit.

His gaze wanders over me before he looks back up. We lie there for a long time. I turn on my side, carefully stretching my fingers toward his right hand. He’s so close I could touch him. And a part of me wants to. A dark part of me wants to feel his power again, his energy, his magic. Under my skin.

Despite all that happened last night. Despite what he is, in his very essence.

Maybe because of it.

Heat flushes my face, along with a shiver.

I hear him turning his head to me, hear the grass rustling at his movement.

“Nidaw said angels are made of stardust,” I whisper.

To my surprise, he laughs quietly, a sound like black velvet and soft as water. Startling. Alluring. I look at him, spellbound.

He raises his brows in question when he notices my gaze.

“You can laugh.”

“I have not, in a long time,” he admits after a while, his gaze lingering on my face. “But we’re not—made of stardust.”

I’m still looking at his skin, which seems to glisten in the dark, and at my fingers so close to his, when something slithers over his arm again—the same black and gold I saw the other night in his kitchen. I don’t pull my hand back, but watch, mesmerized, as those foreign symbols and tattoos sneak up over his wrists and fingers, gliding around the area where my hand is closest to his as if they are curious.

And somehow I have the feeling that it is alive . A living tattoo. Something with a pulse, almost like the bargain on my wrist.

“It’s dark magic,” Caryan says. “Old runes. Gatilla gave them to me.”

I look up to meet his eyes again, but they are veiled by something I can’t grasp. It might be melancholy, but I’m not sure.

Then he gets up in such a smooth, powerful movement that all I can do is watch with awe. He takes a few steps away, his powerful back to me. I get up too, briefly afraid that I’ve said something wrong, but then he returns to me.

He lifts his hand to my cheek, tracing the flowers there before he says, “You were crying. Before, at the festivities.”

He saw it. I want to look away, but he holds my chin gently, studying my face like a painting.

His voice falls low, and I don’t trust my ears when he murmurs, “You are even more beautiful when you cry.”

My breath catches in my throat. I wonder how it is that a lot of the things he says sound like a compliment and a threat at the same time. I don’t know what to make of the way his eyes drink in my face. How he kept looking at me the same cold and indifferent way he’s looking at me now while he pushed himself between my lips. Cruelly. Aloof. As if he’s pondering how far he wants to let himself go.

But his expression doesn’t match his tone when he says, “Do not believe that I don’t know how much you fear being locked away again.”

“Does that mean you won’t?”

“I do not want to. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to if I have to.”

“Cool.” I look down at my naked feet in the grass.

“But I do not like to see you sad,” he adds, immune to my sarcasm.

I peer up at the silvery stars, my chest tight. “How will this work? You keep me forever?”

To my huge surprise, he asks back, “What is it that you would rather do?”

“I don’t know. Have a house by the sea one day. Maybe a dog. A simple life. Freedom.”

“Freedom can easily turn into aimlessness,” he retorts, and I expect a joke .

But when I glance back at him, I find his gaze unusually soft. Knowing.

“You think I can’t live on my own?”

“Do you want to?”

I look away. “Honestly, I’ve never really thought about it.”

I’ve been too busy surviving. Running. Escaping. Fighting. There had been no place for want. When I again glance back at him, I see that he already knows all those things. It makes me feel naked.

“That doesn’t mean I want to live a life in shackles,” I snap.

“Some perceive the boundaries of an enclosure as safety because outside looms the wild,” he counters.

“Yeah? Who? Sheep?” I snap.

“For one.”

“Well, I’m not a sheep.”

His callous lips tear into an almost smile as he leans into my space. “No. What are you then?”

Indignation lifts my chin. “You tell me.”

“Bold. Daring. Valorous. Audacious. Enigmatic. Rebellious.”

“Lovely—” I seethe.

“Very. And a lot of other things, but most importantly, as unique to this world as I am. Which might change your perspective in time. You might find that you come to like your enclosure.”

“Sounds more like a foregone conclusion than a possibility.”

“I’ve just seen too much in my long life.”

“Well, if I am a sheep, what are you? The shepherd?”

“In a sense.”

“A shepherd with a penchant for very public displays of vengeance,” I say, a touch too sharply.

I see his eyes change into those hues that tell me his uncharacteristic lenity is running out. I should stop, because I might regret it. But regret is something for my future self, always has been.

“Justice is not merciful,” he retorts coolly.

Something in me snaps. “Those fauns were innocent.”

He catches my throat too fast. “I have come to believe that you are no sheep. That I have, indeed, found a wolf in the midst of lowly cattle. But a wolf with a weakness nonetheless. It’s your ridiculously soft, half-human heart speaking. It’s this very heart you owe that mark to. To your fragile little feelings.”

“You make it sound as if it’s something bad.”

“They make you weak,” he seethes.

“At least I still have feelings—or I think I’d feel dead inside,” I bite out.

He lets go of me, but lifts my arm, holding my newly tattooed wrist up between us, wrenching me close. “Then tell me, does it feel good that I can make you do anything I want?”

I still. My fury is gone in an instant. Only my heart still beats, and my skin still feels. “Can’t you anyways?” I ask quietly.

I wonder what this is between us. His gaze once again drops to my lips and down my body, filled with a mixture of disgust and hunger. The same dark thing that made him do what he did to me last night. And it terrifies me. Because I know he has the power to destroy me on more than one level.

But even more terrifying is the thought that I know I would let him. That I would let him do anything , bargain or no.

I know he can sense it. Feel it. Read it in my eyes.

Hells, he knows, by the way the look in his eyes turns ravenous.

But just as I think he will go too far, that he will lose control, he says, “I could adapt my methods of governance in time.”

He lets go abruptly, taking a step back from me. My body, my mind, still reel. The words hang in the air. He looks away, as if he didn’t want to acknowledge what he just said.

Only eventually, he breaks the silence once more. “You already learned that you are the last silver elf and what happened to your kind. You will be hunted. You’re never going to be safe out there.”

“And I would be with you?”

“As safe as you can be,” he retorts, again unfazed by my sarcasm.

I don’t like his answer at all.

He startles me all over when he says, “I wanted to discuss the terms of our bargain.”

“Terms? ”

“There is a war coming. I need your gift—to find lost things.”

My blood turns to ice, and I retreat a step. There it is, finally. “I won’t—”

“Not people, not like Lyrian made you do,” he interrupts me, and I know that this is what he saw in my blood. One of the many things. Those terrible things I did. “Objects. Relics. Find three of them for me, and I will free you from that bargain. And if freedom is still what you want by then, we can see about that too.”

“A contract, then?” I ask, confused. Not yet sure about their rules.

“A promise. I will stick to it if you fulfill your side.”