Page 127 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

She flinches slightly at his truth, as if this was an insult, but she catches herself. “Then go ahead, tell me how reckless, and foolish, and stupid I am. That I should be grateful Caryan found me first and keeps me like a pet.”

Riven falls utterly still when he spots sudden tears welling in her eyes. Now she is truly crying.It’s so rare to see a fae cry, he’s forgotten how it looks. But every time she does, the sight arrests him anew, the cruel beauty of it. Like rain, pattering her skin, her eyesoverflowing and wide. He feels the overwhelming urge to reach out to her, but that would be foolish.

“I will do no such thing,” he says instead, his voice gentle.

She glances at him, vigilantly, as if she’s expecting a cruel joke. “Why?”

“Because I don’t think that you are foolish, or stupid, and I don’t think that you should be grateful.”

She seems surprised by his answer. “I thought you loved him.”

“I do. But loving someone doesn’t mean you always agree with the things he or she does. Why did you want to go to Niavara? There is no portal to the human world there,” he says to make that very clear.

“I wasn’t looking for a damn portal. What would I do in the human world anyway? I know barely more about the human world than about this one.”

He hates how desperate she sounds. “What did you want there then?”

Melody bites her lips, clearly debating something. “I don’t know… answers maybe,” she admits finally.

“Answers?”

“Caryan gave me a book. In that book about silver elves, someone left a handwritten list with three places on the last page. One of them is the library in Niavara. I wanted to see whether I could find whatever is there. It was a message, for someone like me, written in the same language as the book.”

Riven frowns, not showing his surprise. He truly thought she wanted to find a way home to the human world. And Caryan gave her a book. A test then, for her? Or something else? “I’m afraid there is no library there anymore. It was destroyed, more than two hundred years ago,” he says. “Your book must be old.”

“By specters, I know that. I read about the destruction of Niavara in that very book, so it must be newer. Someone left that messageafterNiavara was destroyed. That means whatever is there must still be there.”

Riven’s frown only deepens. Therehad been only one other silver elf in the world before Melody. The only one for three centuries.Her mother.

She reads it in his face because she asks, “What?”

“It’s interesting, that’s all,” he says quickly.

He can see she doesn’t believe him. He concentrates hard on keeping the magical mist around his aura up and untorn while he holds her gaze. If she spotted the slightest hint there, she would do everything to get there, he knows.

But could it really be that Ciellara left a message for her in the book? Or maybe one of the acolytes that still lived in the archives of the great libraries, hidden away from the world, deep in the cellars did? A few of them still knew some forgotten languages, as far as Riven knows. Not that he’s ever asked one, because they rarely came up from the depths and even more rarely spoke to anyone… or spoke at all, for that matter.

“What does this message say?” he asks.

Melody shrugs. “JustUnravel the truths, star-struck and moon-kissed one.And thenthree places.Library of Niavara.Archives ofEvander. Ruins of Khalix.Do you know them?”

Unravel the truths.Which truths? Andmoon-kissed and star-struck one—clearly a reference to a silver elf.

Riven keeps his face blank as he says, “I do. Evander is a part of Palisandre.”

“And Khalix?”

He swallows. “It’s a desert city on the third continent to the east. I was born there.”

Her eyes widen. “And… what is there? Is there a library?”

“Yes. One of the largest ones. It’s a city hewn deep into a desert rock with massive, cavernous archives, but I wouldn’t know what to find there.”

“Can we… go there?” she asks carefully.

“No, I’m afraid not. Khalix is not on the best terms with Niavara,” Riven retorts evasively. Not after the Nefarians broke into the Fortress. Abyss, Riven should be glad that Caryan hasn’t yet decided to wipe Khalix from the face of this world forever—threator no. “Besides, no one except the acolytes can enter the library. All archives are sealed to outsiders. Only those who swear themselves to the written knowledge are allowed access.”

“Not even the queen or the king can go?”

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