Page 105 of The Demon Tide

Yu Zo’s eyes snap to Bleddyn’s, as if she’s startled, and I swear I can feel a sudden spark leap between these two. The soldier’s lip quirks, her brow smoothing as she moves on to the fourth sheet of my papers, her focus seeming less intent. “Haveyou?” she replies, some shy hesitation in her words.

“Of course I have,” comes Bleddyn’s saucy reply. She lowers her voice to a purr. “It’s in my pocket. I’m holding it there for you.”

Yu Zo’s mouth flickers into a broader smile as she continues to rifle through my documents, but I can tell she’s ceased seeing them. “You want to give me the moon?” she asks, dark eyes sparkling as she dares a look at Bleddyn, which Bleddyn meets with a wolflike grin.

“On asilver platter,” Bleddyn drawls. “With a bouquet of Xishlon roses to go with it.”

Yu Zo swallows, papers forgotten, her widened eyes fixed now on Bleddyn. “Where will you be Xishlon night?” she asks, low and covert, her gaze darting toward me with a trace of discomfort, as if I’ve become an unfortunate presence in their flirtatious interlude.

Bleddyn lowers her tone to a lulling whisper. “Posted at the southside dock. I’m off at twenty-first hour.”

“I hear your moon burns bright,” Yu Zo says a little breathlessly.

“The very brightest,” Bleddyn rejoins smoothly, a seductive gleam in her emerald eyes.“All through the night.”

A blush blooms on Yu Zo’s face. She clears her throat and expeditiously hands me back the papers. “I’ll find you,” she says to Bleddyn, all business now as she waves us through. Bleddyn blows her a kiss, and Yu Zo cracks a smile and shakes her head, as if shaking off Bleddyn’s Xishlon thrall.

Bleddyn’s flirtatious smile evaporates as soon as we soar out of earshot, rapidly gaining speed. “Keep quiet when we get to the city,” she brusquely orders. “And for gods’ sakes, if you say the wordsAncient Oneagain, I swear I will clock you straight in the head.”

“Fair enough,” I concede, anxiety stinging through me over the size of the search for me. “Where are you taking me?” I ask as we zoom toward the glittering blue-and-purple mountain city.

Bleddyn shoots me a grin over her shoulder, her emerald eyes gleaming. “To someone who’s used to dangerous company.”

PART THREE

Xishlon Land

CHAPTER ONE

SMARAGDALFARMAGIC

Mora’lee Starr’lyrion

Voloi, capital city of Noilaan

Eastern Realm

Three days ago, five days prior to Xishlon

Her ears have been cropped.

Mora’lee’s gaze passes over the Urisk girl’s scarred ears, outrage tightening her chest as fierce sympathy rises for the lavender-hued teen staring up at her through pale amethyst eyes. The bright, early-morning sun streams down on the girl’s ear-tips where the points used to be, her short iris-hued hair chopped into a mass of irregular, floppy spikes.

They brutalized her hair too, Mora realizes, news of this type of thing going on in the Western Realm bad enough to hear about, but to actuallyseeit...

In all her twenty-six years, Mora doesn’t think she’s ever witnessed something so heartbreaking.

She glances at Bleddyn Arterra, her newfound friend and Eastern Realm Resistance ally, struggling not to appear shocked as the breeze flowing up from the Vo River buffets their garments, puffed clouds scudding across a vivid blue sky, the bright sunlight making Mora’s emerald-patterned Smaragdalfar skin sparkle. Merchant and pedestrian traffic has already picked up on Voloi’s Sixth Tier thoroughfare, the main road only a few handspans away, just past her outdoor restaurant’s filigreed metal railing.

Bleddyn sees that I’ve noticed the girl’s mutilated ears, Mora’lee grimly considers as she notes Bleddyn’s grave look.

“Mora,” Bleddyn says in a congenial tone, her Vu Trin uniform bleached a lightened black by the bright sun, “this is Olilly. Olilly, meet Mora.”

Mora smiles warmly and takes the girl’s hand, used to offering friendship and shelter to refugees and Resistance workers on her Smaragdalfar-rune-powered and varg-rune-warded air ship. Olilly’s handshake is uncertain, her gaze fluttering down to her feet repeatedly.

Mora’s heart twists and she makes a point of not glancing again at Olilly’s ears, even as a spitting anger ignites against the Mages.

Monsters. Youmonsters.She can’t be more than fourteen years of age.

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