Page 191 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

And if all that bullshit the seer’sbrabbled about—about Blair’s fate being linked to Melody’s—is true, well then, something is supposed to happen.Soon.

Or Blair is going to make something happen, because she is fucking running out of time.

Perenilla wants an outcome,soon.

She takes another sip when her ears pick up some peddlers talk. One mentions having seen four people—no doubt elves clad in armor, one swears—stepping out of the magical curtain, coming from the lands of the two moons, and walking straight up to the Emerald Forest.

She turns her head to the two fauns with ram horns that curl down around their faces, and then walks upstairs, ignoring the lingering smell of sex and sweat. The two witches are already asleep, naked, entwined in one bed. Blair opens the drawer of an old, wooden desk and gently takes out a blank sheet of paper, then she heads back downstairs.

She finds one of the fauns still there, leaning against the wall of the inn when she returns. “Greetings. I was wondering—if you could write something for me?” She fumbles for some gold and pulls it out from a purse around her belt, holding it up between them.

The merchant understands. Blair can’t lie, but he can write somethingforher. The content doesn’t have to be true—it is one way to circumvent having to tell the truth.

“What do you need me to write?” he asks.

“I went alone.Don’t come looking for me. It is the only way. If you’re reading this, I’m dead. I’m sorry. Thank you for everything.”

The merchant takes out a feather and some ink and makes quick work of it.

He hands her the letter but holds on to the paper when she reaches for it. “I hope this is not true,” he says in an accent that tells her he’s been living in Akribea for a good while. Tells her that he must be old if he remembers the good life there.

“Why do you care?”

“You remind me of my daughter.”

“My horns?” Blair asks—she has none—and he huffs a laugh.

“No. The fierce determination in your eyes.”

He lets go of the paper at that. She hands the golden coins over to him, but he doesn’t take them.

“Keep it, girl. You need it more than I do.”

“You’re wrong. Where I’m going, I won’t need it anymore, old man,” she drawls. When he still doesn’t reach for the coins, she throws them in front of his hooves in the dirt and goes back inside, stepping up the creaky, old wooden steps.

She leaves the letter open on the wooden desk. Then she kneels in front of her still-sleeping mothers, takes out some silver moonstone dust she got from the blacksmith, places it in her open palm, and blows it into the witches’ faces.

A potion. It will make them sleep for two or three days straight. Blair plans to be long gone by then, in one way or the other.

She quietly sneaks down, paying the innkeeper three solid gold coins and telling him that her two companions got ill, and that she’s setting out to find a healer and some herbs, and that they should not be disturbed.

The tired-looking low elf only nods, and Blair ventures out. The merchant and the gold are gone into the night, and Blair walks down the road alone.

58

Melody

I shiver constantly. The cold is so deep, so severe, so uncompromising, I know I won’t escape it. It’s going to claim me. They’ve conjured layers of clothes for me—anoraks from the human world and a blanket of fur. I have no idea where they came from. Caryan’s magic maybe, but I no longer care. My head is dizzy, as if wrapped in a layer of snow, my teeth won’t stop chattering.

I feel tired, too tired to walk on. I don’t realize I’ve tumbled again, barely feeling the icy snow that seeps in everywhere, but hands lift me and carry me, soft wings brushing against my cheeks, shielding me from the worst.

I hardly register how they set up a tent. When I open my eyes again, I realize that it is huge, with beds and a massive wooden table in the middle. Three fires burn in iron bowls that are scattered all over. I’m lying next to the biggest one, wrapped up like a bundle.

Slowly, so slowly, my senses return. I blink a few times, finding Caryan watching me. His eyes are storm-dark again and unyielding, like his aura as he’s crouching next to me on the ground.

“Drink,” he says serenely, handing me a steaming cup.

I try, but my fingers are so cold I can barely close them around it. I want to lie down again. To close my eyes, just for a second…

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