Page 189 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

“To be queen,” Blair spits, but her mother shakes her head.

“No. You are meant for more than even this. You are meant to change the world. You have a bond with that girl, I can feel it. There is a reason for everything, Blair. A reason you never brought her here. You cannot deliver her up to Perenilla.”

“You and Sofya will die if I don’t bring her to Perenilla.” Blair’s eyes fill with all the unshed tears she’s been saving. But they just well up there and do not fall. Not here. Not in the fae world. That she’s able to produce tears in the first place should scare her, because no fae can.

“Then so will it be, if this is our fate,” Aurora says, so easily Blair wants to grab her and shake some sense into her.

Again, her eyes go to Sofya, looking for support, but the blonde witch just watches silently.

“You will find a way, Blair. You always found a way. And I know that this is not the end. Not for us, not for you,” Aurora says.

“You cannot know that,” Blair seethes with sudden fury.

“Yes, my beautiful darling. I canfeelit. Our time has not yet come. Find a way and let us no longer speak about it.”

With that, Aurora pulls her hand back. But the echo of her warmth stays, even when Blair stalks back to her wyvern. The creature is restless, snapping the air with her vicious teeth as they soar higher and higher, until Blair can make herself believe it’s just the wind stinging in her eyes and nothing else.

***

An hour later, they open the battered door of the inn, entering the dimly lit room. The smell of food and fire fills the warm air, welcoming their stiff bones. Blair and her mothers are wearing strong magic on their bodies to camouflage themselves as simple elves, hiding from the crowd with their combat clothes and their daggers and swords. Not to mention their innate weapons—silver nails and canines. It would wreak havoc if witches showed up here, outside of their territory. Blair, Aurora, and Sofya would have to kill every guest at the inn.

A prospect Blair wouldn’t have minded only a year ago.

But since she’s been to the human world, she’s changed. She knows it, but she isn’t ready to tell Aurora or Sofya that much. Not when it won’t matter anyway.

Not after what just happened.

She quietly nurses her beer, tucked in a dark corner of the shady inn, boots close to the fire.

“I kept my ears open. No trace of elves or a witcher, for that matter,” Sofya says, the blonde beauty putting a plate laden with a heavy piece of what looks and smells deliciously like roasted piglet in the middle of the table, interrupting Blair’s brooding.

Her fair-haired mother pretends they are still set on doing Perenilla’s bidding. Aurora too meant what she said—both of them behave like nothing ever happened and will continue to do so until their last breath. Well, trust her mothers when they decide on something.

Fine, they can have it their way.But Blair isn’t fine.Not even close. They know. They are ready to die, for fuck’s sake. For this world, for her fucking mistakes.

They fucking refused to come with her to safety.

“Word would have spread if someone spotted them.” Aurora hums her agreement, as if they were talking about the fucking weather in fucking Palisandre. Both witches just joined Blair at her table as if it were theirs. Aurora takes out her hunting knife and starts to elegantly cut off a neat piece of juicy meat. Aurora always reminds Blair of a high elf, the way she carries herself, speaks, and even eats.

“Still not hungry?” she asks, her groomed eyebrows raising at Blair.

Blair gives an animalistic snarl as an answer, huddling deeper into her corner.

“I’ve never known her to be so quiet,” Aurora says to Sofya as she puts a delicious-looking piece of roasted piglet into her mouth with a fork.

“I’ve never known her not to be hungry,” Sofya replies, tearing off a huge piece of meat with her fingers and nails and stuffing it into her mouth, unbothered by the pink meat juice dripping over her elegant chin.

It has always been like this—Aurora the lady, while Sofya andBlair ripped into the meat with their nails and teeth like animals, and Aurora playfully chiding them for their lack of etiquette.

It is so engrained into Blair she almost waits for it to happen.

But her mothers continue to eat in silence. Blair can’t help but watch the large piece of meat disappearing too quickly in front of her eyes and her empty stomach. The smell of it makes her mouth water and her belly twists with hunger. Fuck witches and their appetites.

Blair reaches out and slices off a fat-dripping piece, her nails going through it like a knife through warm butter.

Sofya’s shrill laughter fills the room. “I knew it.”

Blair cuts her a sharp glance but goes for another chunk of meat. She might be brooding, but she is also starved.

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