Page 192 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

“Drink, Melody.”

A rumble of power jolts through me, sohard it hurts, as if something is burning its way through the inside of my skin. I take a sip, trying hard not to spill any liquid. Then my eyes drift shut again.

I barely hear Ronin’s voice when he enters the tent and a waft of cold swipes in. “It must be close.”

I told them in the forest what I’d seen. I tried to describe the shape of the peaks and the formation of rocks and ice so they might find it without me having to climb up all the way. I know Caryan could have demanded that I show him through my blood, maybe could have forced me to show him as he said. When Kyrith, and then Ronin, once suggested that he should, he growled at them. That shut the topic down quickly.

I can’t shake the feeling that he’s avoiding it for a reason beyond my comprehension.

Maybe it’s because he didn’t see anything in my blood the last time. Maybe because of something else entirely. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t want me close… doesn’t want to feel this connection again.

My thoughts have become indistinct and slow. All I can think of is the cold, so deep and raw it’s as if it is eating me from the inside.

“You might want to go and check yourself—” Ronin says, but Caryan pivots around, snapping his teeth at him. Ronin steps back, hands raised defensively in front of him.

I feel someone lifting my head, a body sliding under the layers of blankets and jackets and pressing up against me, wings folding over me as soft as the snow outside. I’m asleep again, drifting in and out of nightmarish sequences when there’s a sound like an avalanche. A cracking of stone and snow, screeching and hissing.

Inhuman and terrifying.

59

Blair

The seer had been right. They have been headed to Silas, the holy mountain. Blair once overheard Ciellara mentioning the range of those mountains, Silas the highest peak in their midst, covered in eternal snow, and haunted by blizzards. The moon elf Ciellara read about them in a book. She said it was a place where you only found doom. Wicked and cursed and not holy at all.

Blair commanded her phantom wyvern to circle over the area until she spotted a tiny flicker through the dense snowstorm. A tent with fires inside.

She cursed under her breath, her fingers so numb she had trouble holding on to her wyvern, even with fur-lined gauntlets on. She made the beast perch on a nearby rock before she slumped off, bracing herself against the bitter, unnatural cold. Undiluted, raw, ancient magic, eating away at her own.

Even a witch wouldn’t last long up here.

No wonder those crazy high elves chose this spot to hide a relic. No one halfway sane would come here.

Now she’s wading through the hip-high snow, planning her attack.

Four elves, the peddler said. They sure looked like elves from a distance.

One must be Melody. One Caryan himself. The other one thatpain-in-the-ass warrior Kyrith. The last of them the witcher Blair has heard only stories of. Witchers—eerie half-breeds rumored to be the secret offspring of witches. Since the coven allows no male offspring, boys are usually killed at birth by their mothers. But some, those who aren’t dispatched… well, they say they become witchers. Destined to be natural witch hunters with senses no one knows much about, turning against the very mothers who abandoned them.

But who knew? Rumors were often a lot of bullshit.

But Caryan hasn’t brought Riven, Blair’s sure. He would have left Riven behind to rule. The breathtaking, silver-tongued elf has always been the one Caryan trusts. But thankfully, he isn’t here… Blair isn’t too keen on another encounter with him.For one because she can’t look at his smug face without the constant wish to smash her fist into it. Not that she would succeed in this endeavor. Riven’s magic is one of the most powerful Blair’s ever witnessed. Gods, she’s seen him lay a whole town to ash without so much as lifting a finger.

Not that his absence will do anything to change the odds.

An angel, a blood-sucking elf, and a blood-sucking witcher against a witch… hells, not good. She licks her canines. They are so cold her tongue almost sticks to the silver, and she has to peel it back off with a hiss as she crouches low and watches the tent.

Yep, she’s seen better odds and better days. But all she needs to do is kill the girl.

Or die trying, which is the far more likely scenario. But it’s the only thing Blair can do to save her sorry ass. To make amends. To save Aurora and Sofya too.

She figures it doesn’t matter either way whether she dies or not. Her mothers will be safe. That’s all that matters.

She stretches out her hands and pulls off the gauntlets, snarling against the cold that instantly starts to gnaw at her skin.

A silvery green light dances in the storm as she summons the illusion of two huge wyverns—similar to the ones Aurora and Sofya ride, drawing deep into her magic. She’s too far away from Perenilla to channel from the reservoir, so sheneeds to use her own. It won’t last long here, though, in this strange, ancient cold—and definitely won’t be enough to keep up a fight with three different kinds of monsters—but it will be enough for a distraction.

And a distraction is all she needs.

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