Page 143 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

I wash my hair, then get out and head for the kitchen. No one seems to notice me. I only catch Chef occasionally glancing my way before he quickly looks away again. It’s only later that he comes up to me, catching my hands in his huge, clawed ones. He falls to a knee. Horror sweeps over me.

“No, please. Get up,” I whisper, but he just holds me there, my hands clasped in his, his massive, beautiful horns almost reaching up to my neck even when he kneels, he’s that huge.

The pearls woven in his braided strands of hair click with the movement. He takes one of them out. A black and shiny one that seems to brim with magic.

“Call me Arbor henceforth, because this is my name, and know that I am forever grateful. We do not have much, but I do have this,”he says, putting the tiny, black pearl into my hand. “Swallow it, and it will dissolve, and you will be able to grow fairy wings and fly. But beware that the spell won’t last long and that it will only work once.”

“Thank you,” I whisper, my hands closing around the pearl, but he bows only deeper.

“I would be your servant forevermore, obedient to your command, if I hadn’t sworn fealty to my king already.”

I say nothing. It would only make things worse if I told him that I saw what power does to people and that I don’t want it. I know Caryan would not be pleased if he ever heard about this. Or worse, if he saw it in someone’s blood.

So I just nod once, as if I understand.

I’m grateful when things fall into their usual order and I can go back to cutting vegetables, my mind still too adrift.

***

Later that night, when the sun is already halfway down, Nidaw orders me and the blush-haired siren—Everly—to clean Lady Sarynx Maedavel’s rooms. The blonde elf who’d been at Caryan’s side. My stomach clenches at the prospect of another encounter with her.

When we enter the rooms, the ash around the fireplace and the bucket are gone, but the rest is as messy as it was. There are clothes and fine dresses strewn around everywhere, and so is the jewelry. Bracelets and pearls and earrings scattered all over the room, negligently thrown between flacons of luxurious oils and perfumes, golden glitter and burned-down candles.

We start to gather the things, collect and arrange them, folding fallen clothes, working wordlessly side by side. I occasionally glance at Everly, at her back, wondering whether she still has scars left there from the spymaster’s whip.

“Come, tell me that I deserved worse,” the siren says suddenly, catching me looking at her.

I jerk up from where I’ve been crouching to gather up some fallen rings. “I would never.”

Everly watches me with her huge, pale eyes before she says, “She’s my aunt, the one I wrote to, but she’s practically my mother. She raised me. I haven’t seen her for fifteen years. Since I left Palisandre. Since she sent me here to find Nidaw.”

“I’d have done the same, I think,” I say, meaning it. If I had a mother, I sure as hell would at least try to send her letters, all rules out the window.

The girl snorts, but then briefly smiles. A conspiratorial smile. “What’s your name? Melody, is it?”

“Yeah, right.”

“You saved Arbor’s life, and the three others’,” she says. “We heard. That was a kind thing to do. I’m sorry I was mean.”

I dust my hands off on my pants. “You said it was my fault, that… circumstances changed.”

She watches me curiously, her teal eyes wide. “You’re the girl from Kalleandara’s prophecy.”

“Maybe. What does it say?”

She shies away, biting her lips, the inside limned with dark-bluish skin. “You don’t know then,” she states, her eyes darting around the room, as if she’s looking for something.

I shake my head.

“I think I did you wrong, so I might tell you,” Everly eventually decides. “It says war is coming and that you might change its outcome.”

I don’t know what to say other than, “How? How wouldIdo that?”

Again, the siren chews on her lips before she shakes her head. “We don’t know. No one really knows, that is the problem with prophecies. They stay cryptic, but we still believe in them.”

“What does it sayexactly?”

“That war is coming, and that you are the one who’s going to end the blight.”

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