Page 178 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

On a snap of his fingers, a chair appears, and he sits down on it. His gaze only returns to me when I’m fully dressed again in my slave attire.Fitting.

I slump down onto my bed, my body turned away from his as I curl up under the blanket.

“You’re going to leave tomorrow morning.” Riven’s voice drifts through the room.

“What?” I whip my head to him.

His features are grave, his eyes muted, his achingly beautiful face solemn. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he looks torn, his pale fingers curling around the wooden armrests of the chair as if he’d like to strangle it.

“Caryan’s going to set out with you tomorrow to hunt for the relics.”

“You’re not coming with us?” I ask, despite myself.

He shakes his head only once.

I turn away again so he cannot see the tearsrising in my eyes.

***

My heart sinks when I spot Kyrith standing next to Ronin in the corridor to the throne room the next morning. I quickly look away when I hear Caryan striding closer, keeping my head down as I follow them towards the dungeon, then out through a door to the right. There are two cars in a room that looks more like some kind of monster den than a garage, with a black tunnel leading deeper into the bowels of the Fortress. I’m not sure, but I think I catch the scent of carrion wafting over from it. My gaze snaps back to the cars. They’re weird-looking cars, butcars.Black, sleek, monstrous things.

“Demons,” Ronin explains simply, indicating the vehicles.

“Careful, princess, or they’ll try to take a bite out of you,” Kyrith drawls as he passes me. “They might just like your scent a little bit too much.”

If I didn’t know they can’t lie, I would think they were joking.

I ignore him, though, not keen on another encounter with him. I still don’t even dare to look toward Caryan—not after last night—and only briefly glance at Ronin as he opens the car door for me.

I’m glad when Caryan gets in with Kyrith, and Ronin and I take the other car.

We leave the Fortress and the machines—ordemons—almost fly over the uneven, stony ground with breathtaking speed, soundless as hawks on a hunt.

I find myself looking out the window, surprised that I’m strangely excited to see more of this world. I should probably be terrified, given my last encounter with the worm and all the possiblenewhorrors waiting for me, but I’m not. Maybe it’s the knowledge that Caryan is here to protect us, or just the power of my curiosity that’s getting the better of me.

I haven’t seen much, not of the human world nor of this one, and suddenly I long to know more, dangerous or not.

The desert seems to stretch out endlessly. After a while, the hard, rocky ground and stones under us disappear altogether and fade into a red and white ocean of sand meandering in waves into the distance. The car under us seems to shift too, now soaring justabove the ground rather than moving on wheels. It drifts along the dunes like a ship going with the tide.

I have the window open. Strange, new smells fill my nose, the warm, arid wind ruffles my and Ronin’s hair.

Twice, we pause for a break, only short moments before we go on.

The light eventually shifts into darkness, so I curl up on the huge seat—the interior larger than any car I’ve ever been in and close my eyes.

***

I wake up when we stop. It’s day again, only different. The warm, desert sun has morphed into a silvery light that seems to be reflected by snow-covered mountains rising up far in the distance. When we get out of the cars, I smell the snow of their peaks, the cold arctic and unforgiving like a promise, although it’s still warm. I look around to find the desert has vanished, and we are in a strange land of transition. The orange has ebbed out from under us, giving way to a mirthless gray ground where nothing grows.

A soulless stretch of land, as if it belongs to no one and nothing.

They don’t tell me anything, and I don’t dare to ask, as we leave the cars behind and start to walk. I’m wedged in the middle, Ronin behind me, Caryan leading and Kyrith in front of me, shooting me occasional glances, as if he doesn’t trust me. But his hostility towards me is gone, at least for now. I can see as much in his aura. I guess I should be grateful.

Suddenly, I feel a cool prickle over my whole body, as if I’ve stepped through a curtain of water. And behind it, green grows everywhere, omnipresent and overwhelming. A grassland stretching out so far only the horizon is the limit. There are so many shades of green, I only manage to name a few of them—verdigris, emerald, terre verte, celadon—and others I’ve never seen.

We make our way through the hip-high grass when I freeze in my tracks. A pristine forest with ancient trees appears out ofnowhere, towering up right in front of us. I blink. Hells, it wasn’t there seconds ago. The air is now scented with moss and flowers and spicy barks. Huge birds with colorful bills circle above.

We walk straight toward it, yet the closer we get, the more the trees come into focus. They form a kind of wall, the forest a fortress in itself.

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