Page 74 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Melody

We fly for most of the night, the wind up here no longer warm but icy and cutting under my thin clothes. We sit wedged between the huge, dark scales of the dragon, soaring high over desert lands.

And as I look down, I wonder whether past events robbed me of my primal fear of heights, because I find it strangely beautiful and peaceful up here.

As if nothing could touch me.

Blair behind me stays silent the whole time, and there is only the boom of the dragon’s powerful wings under the stars and my own, wild thoughts.

I hold on tight when the dragon suddenly soars higher, closer to the moons and towards the clouds that have gathered over the ocean. A storm, ready to break loose. When they part, I spot outlines of an ivory city perched on the coast, surrounded by houses, safely enclosed by massive walls. A huge tower protrudes from its middle like a warning, a fire burning on its top so big I can see it from here. The city, so much larger than Niavara.

A real city.

“What is this?” I ask Blair, twisting around to look at her.

She still looks bad. Pale and thin now, her muscles protruding, her face sharp and angular, accentuating her piercing, golden eyes. Her long, white hair streams unbound behind her as if she’s underwater. Her torn clothes hang on her, some scraps that must have been a red cloak once, now soaked with blood, fluttering in the wind like a flame. How she survived Caryan’s prison… it must be her fae blood, because right now, she looks more dead than alive save for the fire in her eyes.

Those eyes zero in on me, and I can see the hunger guttering in them, reminding me that she is still a predator. And that a part of her would love to see me die.

Preferably violently.

She drawls, “It’s Avander. A harbor town, where Caryan’s fleet lies. Like Niavara, Caryan rebuilt it from elven ruins.”

Indeed, as the clouds below us part further, I spot huge ships anchored all around, surrounding the town and the coast. Hundreds of them, their silvery sails tinted bone white beneath the moonlight. And on them, two moons, one white and one gleaming red, with black, angelic wings spread out in the back.

Caryan’s signet. The Kingdom of the Two Moons.

I feel a twist in my stomach. “I didn’t realize his kingdom was that huge,” I whisper, more to myself, but with her acute hearing, of course Blair heard me. I instantly regret it, because she lets out a cruel laugh.

“What did you think it was? A Fortress in the middle of the desert, a tiny desert town, and nothing else? That’s just where he lives . A tactical move, obviously. The desert, roamed by demons, is impossibly hard to cross if you don’t have wings. Not to mention all those creatures that haunt it.”

Obviously. Creatures like a sand worm.

Blair is right, I should know. But still, her words cut deep, and I’m not prepared. I’m still so na?ve, thinking the glimpse I got of the fae world over the last two months is all there is.

But it has just been a tiny shard. I only saw what Caryan wanted me to see.

The dragon banks hard to the right, and Blair lets out a sharp hiss, as if she’s burned herself.

“What is it? ”

“Can’t you feel it? It’s his wall. Caryan’s warded the kingdom and sealed it with spells. We have to fly north to the end of his shields.” She bares her silver canines against the invisible force.

I frown as I, too, feel a slight brimming in the air, brushing up against me as the dragon veers sharp to the left so that we’re now flying parallel to the coast, keeping the city at our back, before he suddenly descends.

“Caryan indeed warded his kingdom. You will have to break through, little one. A temporary hole will be enough.”

I flinch, not because of the rapid descent that makes my stomach shoot up, but because of the voice that suddenly sounded in my head. A deep, foreign voice. What the fuck?

I get a rumble under me as an answer. My mind tries to catch up as the realization hits me. The dragon, demon, whatever just… talked to me. In my thoughts.

“I did, indeed. Now hold on ,” he warns.

I obey out of sheer reflex as he spreads his massive wings wide to slow our rapid drop before his colossal claws dig into the soil under us, his weight making the whole ground shake.

“Why can you talk to me? And I to you?” I ask back in my mind, following the direction his voice came from. At its end, there is a connection, like a bridge, or a thread. Something dark blue, shimmering like his scales. Something I can reach out to just as I once reached out to Caryan’s bond.

“Yes, this is me. Or us, if you will. We have a bond now ,” he explains patiently.

Riven once explained that fae have bonds.

“You are a fae too,” the dragon chimes in, cutting off my train of thought, as if he could hear it. “ I can.”

“That’s… weird.”

“Lock me out if you don’t like it,” he grumbles back. “ Or I can read every one of your thoughts. It can become rather tiresome.”

“Lock you out how?”

“By focusing on pushing me out and then sealing that bond with walls or the like. But for now, get off and break through his ward, little one. Time is of the essence. My former master will not be stalled for much longer.”

He bends one leg so I can slip off his back easily. My knees buckle slightly, though, my whole body stiff from the long flight, the cold, and exhaustion.

I jump as his huge snout, with very impressive teeth, nudge me towards the edge of the cliff, to where the desert meets the ocean. Hells, one of his beautiful, curled horns is almost as long as my leg, not to mention those teeth.

“I won’t hurt you,” he says after a scoff that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

“Wait—you’re the one who tried to eat me a couple of hours ago, right?”

“The very one,” he says without a shred of remorse. “But I won’t try that again, I promise.”

Until you change your mind, I think. Nothing has prepared me for the bone-shaking growl that comes from him. I stare at him, wide-eyed.

“A bond is a sacred thing. You think I accept that easily, or broke my old one, for that matter?” Before I can answer he continues, “Besides—you can hardly blame me for trying to snatch you out of the air if you looked like a perfect midnight snack with your glowing wings.”

“Then it’s a good thing that they’are gone.”

“Definitely. A pixie is far more delectable than an elf,” he counters and I can’t tell whether this is a joke.

“Reassuring, really,” I grind out, rubbing my bare arms, still not trusting it. As if he felt it, his mood turns somber. Hells… I can feel that in my body.

“I am serious, little one. Things changed.”

“Because I’m wearing Caryan’s tattoo?” I ask. I just have to know. He scoffs, blueish smoke coming out of his nostrils and I stagger back.

“No. The tattoo does not matter, neither does Caryan’s magic in your veins. I accepted the bond because you earned my respect. It is not every day that someone is brave enough to threaten one of my kind.”

“The last one was Caryan,” I think automatically before I can stop it.

“Yes, the last one was Caryan, and no one after him,” he confirms. “ And—I never ate someone I bonded before.”

“Encouraging. There’s always a first time,” I bite out.

He scoffs again and a wave of amusement washes through me at that.

I bonded a demon. A demon with humor .

“Yes, I am a demon with humor. Still more common than a half-elf around here, I assure you,” he snaps back into my head.

Of course he heard.

“Lock me out if you don’t want me to listen,” he reminds me again before I get another nudge with his snout, pushing me further towards the cliff.

“And grumpy,” I add, stepping up to where the wall of magic waits, invisible to the eye but all the more deadly. So close I can clearly feel the traits of its even deadlier creator. A tiny part of its essence now flows through me too.

“A tiny hole will be enough,” the demon rumbles, as if there was no easier thing in the world.

I draw in a sharp breath while I try to remember what I did the last time I broke out of Caryan’s Fortress. Back then, my body acted of its own accord. But this here… this is much, much stronger. I can feel a complicated pattern, like a thousand different strands of magic intricately woven together and pulled tight. Sealed with bristling spells.

Way more complicated than the shields of the Fortress. Much stronger. Like a current that would rip me away and draw me under if I so much as tried to find a way in.

“Of course it is stronger. It is the wall that seals his kingdom,” the demon snarls into my mind.

“Not helpful,” I shoot back.

“You broke out once.”

Right, I can do this. I take a deep breath and lift my hands, my magic probing up against this.

“Want to tell me what the fuck we’re doing, human? Wasting precious time?” Blair’s voice behind me makes me startle. She’s jumped off the demon’s back, too, and approached, silently as a ghost.

The demon’s warning growl fills the air, followed by his words in my mind. “ I do not trust her. I never did.”

“So, you two go back a long way?”

“Define long when you are ageless,” he snaps, but his sharpness is not directed at me, I know. “But definitively too long for my taste.”

I turn to Blair. “The demon wants me to break through that wall,” I explain.

“Are you kidding me? We have to fly north. No one can break through a fucking wall, certainly not you.”

“Of course she wants to go north. And deliver you up to her witches on a silver plate,” the demon growls in my mind.

“I must at least try,” I say.

Her white eyebrows shoot up, and she scrunches up her face. “Wait a second—did you just say it wants you to?”

He, the demon, snarls, and it makes my bones vibrate.

“Yeah, he told me to try,” I say, turning back to the wall.

“Are you trying to tell me that you can fucking speak with Caryan’s demon?”

“Formerly Caryan’s demon, ” the demon corrects in my mind. “ Now concentrate, Melody.”

I just nod, focusing on the deadly cascade of magic before me, running down in a stream. Something that knows no end and no beginning.

“That’s impossible,” Blair snaps.

“The only impossible thing is her. Tell her that,” the demon growls, and I can feel his fury.

“Demons do not bond with weaklings,” she says into my back. “They incinerate them for fun. Or snack on them.”

My head shoots to her before I can help it, and I find myself glowering. “Are you calling me pathetic?”

Blair shrugs, but I can see her aura belying her nonchalance. Pure, yellow envy shines there like a weird form of beacon in the night. “Weak. Annoying. Helpless. Pathetic. Just stating the obvious.”

“You know what, Blair? Fuck you.”

She wants to jump at me, I can see her muscles tensing, preparing, but a snap of the demon’s teeth makes her change her mind last minute.

He pulls his upper lip back, exposing the full length of teeth the size of my arm. “ Tell her I will incinerate her for fun if she doesn’t shut her mouth,” he says to me.

“I think your body language is quite convincing,” I retort, because her amber eyes widen, darting between me and the demon.

She is still slightly crouched, her fingers with her deadly nails spread but frozen in motion. Only her lip curls back, exposing her silver teeth. “If he cares so much for you, tell him that what he’s asking you to do is practically suicide. The wall incinerates everything . We need to fly west. Then sharp north. Cut over the Emerald Forest and then cross the ocean from there, at the outskirts of Caryan’s kingdom.” The demon snaps his teeth at her in warning.

“Not happening. Witches prowl those territories, and Queen Calianthe will likely try to shoot us down before asking who we are, the demon shoots back. It is a trap. Or the witch is mad. Or both. Ignore the witch and focus on that wall, little one. I know you can do it.”

Blair glowers at the demon, then she says to me. “We’re losing critical time. If we wait here, we lose our advantage. Caryan is an angel. As soon as he’s recovered, he’ll just open up a portal and jump there, wait for us, and we’re doomed. Let’s go now .”

“Tell the witch that he will be faster regardless. There is no way I can fly fast enough to arrive at the border before him. Breaking through the wall is our only chance.”

“He says that this is our only chance,” I repeat loudly for her.

Her eyes turn to vicious slits as they stay on the demon. “Yeah, maybe he wants you roasted. A late form of revenge against his former master. What a glorious payback.”

“Tell her I will devour her if she says anything like that again. ”

“I need to at least try,” is all I retort—to both of them, exasperated—before I turn back to the wall.

I lift my hands. The wall’s magic reaches out to me, while mine desperately tries to find a loose thread. Something to start with.

I think I scream as the magic suddenly seeps into me, so like Caryan’s before, ready to kill me, burn me from the inside.

The next time I blink to my senses, I’m lying on the ground, my mouth tasting like ash.

The demon’s remarkable golden eyes focus on me, and I swear I can feel his relief swamping me. Relief that I’m still breathing.

“That went well. Great you’re still alive. I thought I was going to have to fight that demon over your roasted barbecued corpse,” Blair snarls, and my head jerks up to her. “Let’s get north, whatever your newfound pet says. We’re running out of time.”

My eyes find the demon’s again. “ It’s too strong. She’s right. I’m so sorry.”

“Do not be sorry. But try again,” he pushes. “ I know you can do it.”

I swallow hard. My arms tremble from the strain as I push myself to my knees. It feels so much like what Caryan did to me… I think that part. I didn’t mean to think it loud , but the demon heard me.

His voice in my mind is gentler than I ever thought possible. “ I know, little one. But this time you can control it. This is our only chance.”

It’s the sudden desperation I hear and feel, as if it was my own and yet not. Different. Tinged by a wave of remorse and regret that has me get up and step to the wall again.

This time, as the whitish fire invades me, I’m prepared. My own magic dodges the attack in time, diving right into the labyrinth of bristling, deadly power before the magic can sink its talons and teeth into me. I feel the wall’s magic turning around, giving chase. Flickering and biting threads of magic, designed to kill spear through me while I hunt for a way out.

It hurts, unlike anything I ever felt before. Something eating away at me, burning hot and arctic cold at the same time. I fall to my knees, but I keep my hands in that current.

Cold water splashes over me, and I jolt awake. I can feel it coming off me as steam, I’m burning that hot. When I blink, I find that I’m held by talons, immersed fully in the flood of the ocean.

I gasp for air, and the demon pulls me up again before gently carrying me back to the spot where Blair’s settled down with her back against a rock. The first silvery light of dawn graces the horizon.

“What happened?” I ask.

“You—”

“You almost turned into a torch.” Blair’s answer comes faster, but her voice is unusually flat.

The demon shoots her a glare, huffing steam, but she keeps looking straight at me.

“I’m so sorry… we should go. Blair’s right,” I manage to grind out, my voice coming out shaky. Strained. My whole being feels like I’m more dead than alive.

“Sure, I’ve been right. But it’s too late by now. You fucking doomed us. He will be here soon.” Blair jumps to her feet, looking up at the sky, at the hint of sun. “I will get a swift death, but as for your demon here… I’m not so sure Caryan will make it quick. He doesn’t take well to treason. And you…” Her gaze settles back on me, her lips pulling into a cruel smile. “I hope your little attempt to escape was worth it because it’ll probably be the last time you’ve seen daylight in a long time.”

I don’t know what to do with this sudden desperation. This time it is mine, mingling with that of the demon. The flood of both of our emotions united is gripping me so hard I can barely breathe.

The demon behind me growls, but Blair just laughs. “What, lizard? Don’t like me to state what’s going to happen? I know him too well. Melody at least deserves to know. And you, breaking that bond to him…”

“An execution?” My head snaps to the demon and he blinks once.

“I’m sorry, little one. ”

“No. I will make two more bargains. That won’t happen,” I say out loud, keeping my voice from breaking.

Blair just laughs harder. “Oh, I’m sure he’s in no mood for bargains this time.” She turns away at that, and I can see her heavily scarred back through her torn clothes. Just so much pain and a life ending like this.

I glance back to the demon who keeps looking at me with his head hung low. “Tell me he’s not going to kill you. I don’t even… fuck, I don’t even know your name.”

He lifts his chin at that.

“I’m Aravanach’lach’kaniss Kahir’ach Manazhsss. Son of the nine hells. Abyss’ born. Forged and hatched by the nine fires at the beginning of the days. And it’s been my honor.”

Tears begin to fill my eyes. “Tell me there’s another way.”

“I cannot, little one. The witch is right.”

“But why? Why do it then when you knew? Why help us?” I scream at him mentally. I feel the sudden wish to destroy something. Anything. To shred and rip.

Something in me rises. Something dark and lethal, silvery and black, rearing its mighty head as tears start rolling down my cheeks. Blair’s right. I’m pathetic. And weak, for fuck’s sake.

“You are not. I do not bond pathetic people. And I am never wrong.”

“Well, you were this time,” I bite out. “I should have never asked for your help. I doomed us both.”

He lifts his head, towering over me. “ I am ancient. I have never made a mistake before, and I did not make one now. Maybe you are not strong enough now, but you will be. I know it. And everything has a time to die. Maybe mine has come. And I will go with pride, because I served you, even if only for a short time. But never stop believing in yourself. You were born out of light. Never succumb to the darkness.”

The pride that washes through me makes me sick to my bones. He is proud of me. Why?

I can no longer hold his soft stare. I shake my head and turn away, marching back to that wall .

Oh no, if Caryan was going to kill them both, I would die first. But he won’t get what he wants. I will not yield. I will not serve on my knees the way he wants me to and watch all my friends die. I’d rather be dead myself.

“Little one! Don’t! ”

I slam down a mental wall just as the demon told me to and block his voice out. Then I hurl myself against the warded wall. Back into that labyrinth of wards and spells.

I scream. I know that, somewhere, I’m screaming as the magic starts to take me apart. But then this new magic in me answers. Surges. Something laced with utter darkness, with fangs and talons, so like the ones of that wall. Talons that lash back and teeth that snap and rip and shred… and I let it. Let it run wildly like a monster on the hunt. Somewhere lightning strikes as I let it tear those threads apart, bit by bit by bit. Layer by layer by layer.

Let it rip everything to ribbons.

And suddenly, I can see it—a hole. Blue as the morning sky. Air streaming through. Salty, beautiful air that cools my burning, steaming body. My molten bones and marrow. My ruined soul.

Oblivion.

Cool, soothing oblivion. It feels like flying again.

“Good you’re back,” the demon’s voice greets me. I blink as my senses return slowly.

My clothes are drenched in water, I realize, and I’m shivering. Blair’s silver nails are digging into my shoulders, piercing my leathers to keep me seated on the dragon’s back.

“You made it. I told you I make no mistakes,” he says with no small amount of self-righteousness.

“Don’t be so modest ,” I manage to grind out.

“Demons were not born to be modest, my little one.”

“Just so you know, I’m going to call you Aris because there’s no way I’ll ever be able to pronounce your full name,” I say quietly, remembering the way he said it into my mind, full of hisses and snarls. Guttural, foreign sounds only a dragon, or demon, can make.

“Aris? You are aware that I am one of the biggest, deadliest demons of the nine hells?” he grumbles but over the bond, I can feel that he likes it.

“You might want to hold on on your own,” Blair snarls from behind me. “The smell of your blood is rather distracting.”

She lets go of my shoulders, and I grind my teeth against the wounds her nails have left. Then I dig my nails into Aris’ scales. We made it. The high of that fact swamps my blood. I could cry. All three of us would live . We are free. When I twist around, I find the ivory city still perched on the cliff, the wall we just broke through invisible to the eye.

I turn back to look ahead, just in time to see a volley of magical arrows spearing for us. The demon banks hard, lifting his wing to take the brunt. His bone-shaking roar fills the night as his wing is shredded. I feel the blinding pain through the bond, ripping through me.

I scream.

More arrows come flying.

Arrows made of bristling, lilac magic.

They strike his legs, his neck.

I glance up, only to find a squadron of membrane-winged warriors above us, blotting out the sun. Nefarians.

Then, we’re falling.