Page 194 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

The girl who’s standing at the very edge of an icy cliff, shivering so badly she can barely keep herself upright.

Only yards away, Caryan. He’s gone still as stone.

“Let her live. Let her live or I’ll jump.”

The wind carries the girl’s voice over. Blair, despite the pain, lifts her head.Why? Why fight for me? Again. And blackmailing Caryan… She’s got some balls. Crazy half-human.

“Come back, Melody!” Caryan’s voice is like a sword, cutting through the whirlwind, his eyes gleaming in the storm like two wildfires bundled into marbles. All Gatilla’s monster, no trace of the man Blair sometimes lay with in all those lonely hours. But even he doesn’t dare move.

“Promise you won’t hurt her,” the girl says again, swaying slightly.

Blair curses silently. One wrong move and she will fall, plunge to certain death.

“Come. Back,” Caryan repeats, his voice dead as stone.

“No. Promise—or I’ll jump. You won’t be fast enough to catch me. Not in this storm. And from this height, not even you’ll be able to bring me back,” she says, every word cut off by her chattering teeth.

Caryan snarls, his wings spread, ready to launch himself at her. But… he doesn’t. Even he doesn’t dare.

Blair holds her breath. Because Melody’s right—not even the angel will be able to bring her back if she falls. And from the fierce determination in Melody’s eyes, Blair knows she means every word. She will jump.

For a strange moment, everything around Caryan has grown as still as he. The storm subsides, snowflakes drifting softly through the air as even the wind has fallen silent, as if it, too, listens to Caryan’s words, deep and vicious as he says, “I promise.”

The girl nods, as if to herself. And, as if she’s just been holding out long enough for this, she collapses.

Caryan is already there, catching her body and carrying her back to the tent in his arms, not once looking toward Blair as he strides past.Of course not.

Blair doesn’t fight when Ronin and Kyrith grab her arms, the first one as madly beautiful as she remembers him, the second the same rugged-looking bastard. A scream rips from her throat as they wrench her up and the wound on her neck is torn open all over.

“Fun’s over, witch,” Kyrith croons. The white-haired idiot has the nerve to smirk at her, his eyes glistening with a dark kind of enjoyment.

“Fuck off, you shithead,” she snarls. That earns her a snap of his vampire teeth right into her face, way too close to her shredded throat. Not that Blair can do anything in Ronin’s relentless grip other than pull her lips back.

It is pretty much the last thing she masters before everything grows dark around her and she falls into oblivion.

Blair’s curled next to one of the fires, hands tied behind her back with iron chains when she awakes.

The first thing she notices is that she feels different. Empty—the steadying, ever-present hum in her veins, her magic… gone.

She lies like that for a while, with her eyes closed, half dead, her mind straining for some leftovers somewhere inside her that Caryan might have overlooked.

But there’s nothing. Not a single ember is left to stir when she calls to her power.

It’s all gone. She’s a witch without magic.

A witch without magic and no coven to return to.

She’s as good as dead. Her body is nothing but a strange, lifeless shell without it. Weaker than any lesser fae.

She listens to the howling outside, hoping that Aurora and Sofya have returned to Perenilla by now. It’s all Blair could do for them—make sure they’re safe.

She doesn’t know how long she lies there, drifting in and out of sleep, unanchored, without the grounding power of her magic, before she feels brave enough to finally open her eyes.

Gods, her body is like a deadweight without magic. How the hells can humans move like this? Her head feels like it’s about to burst, her lips parched, her whole body aching for water. But the wound at her neck at least seems to have closed up because the thirst is worse than the pain when she manages to lift her head. The good news is that her fae healing is still working. Even with her magic gone.

She should be thankful she’s still breathing, but all she wishes for is death.

Her vision blurs a few times. She fights against grinding nausea before she summons enough of her strength to sit up and lean against one of the wooden posts that hold the huge tent up. The room—it’s more a room than a tent—swims in front of her eyes before it slowly solidifies.

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