Page 7 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Blair

Blair stands in her cell, the ripped fabric of the silver dress she’s still wearing stiff with dried blood. She no longer feels the ice biting her bare skin. A human would long since have died from the cold. A human like that girl…

Blair’s mind keeps wandering back to her. Melody.

She saved her. Not that Blair deserved that act of mercy.

Why? Why did she do it?

Witches know no mercy. Mercy is a coward’s trait. Compassion, another deficiency. It’s something that haunts Blair—why the very girl she has hunted for a year, chose to spare her. Because she’s a human with a soft, human heart?

Blair knows it was a sacrifice. Because a man like Lyrian won’t let a kindness like that go unpunished.

And now… Caryan has found her.

Last night, Aurora snuck down here. A stolen moment to tell Blair that Sofya was alright, to bring Blair some medicine and the rumors that Caryan had caught the girl. A seer told them so.

Melody. Ciellara’s daughter. The daughter of the woman who almost killed Caryan that fatal night at Gatilla’s tower.

Her daughter, born to continue her mother’s legacy and finish the task her mother didn’t accomplish. To kill Caryan.

Melody, the girl from Kalleandara’s prophecy. The girl who will end the blight .

Blair didn’t expect the task of finding the girl would bring the past rushing back in a deluge. The time in her aunt’s tower. A time of so much darkness, only lightened by the moments she and Caryan tangled in the sheets in some languid nightly hours.

And now this girl is in Caryan’s cruel hands…

A fact that could change this world all over.

Blair’s officially failed. The witches. Her people.

She leans her scarred back against the wall, her teeth chattering so hard her face aches. But a dark part of her heart aches even worse. A part she doesn’t want to examine too closely. A silly, useless stir of emotion. Definitely nothing she wants to acknowledge. But it bubbles up unasked, again and again like a burning itch until she can no longer ignore it.

It is pain, she realizes. Pain about the knowledge that she’s not only failed her people—she’s also failed that girl. A girl, as desperate and lonely as Blair has been.

Blair turns and looks out through the tiny crack in the wall that serves as a window. Outside, a storm is howling, and rain patters down as if the sky itself is weeping.

Blair doesn’t know what would have been worse for Melody—if Caryan or Perenilla got hold of her. What would be worse for this world?

She huddles against the wall and pulls her legs up close to her body before she closes her eyes. She normally likes storms, but tonight she can’t help but feel that it’s full of ghosts.

Raging.

Howling.

Just as that magic, locked away even deeper below than she. In an even darker place, where no light is ever going to reach it.