Page 205 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

It needs to stop. Stop right now, or…

The angel grabs her slender wrists, barely forcing the words out. “That’s enough.”

The picture dissolves once more like a waft of smoke, spilling into tendrils of nothingness, and I’m in a throne hall, a different sort of agonizing, hellish pain striking me like lightning when the whip comes down on my back once more, splitting skin open, the iron end digging deep through flesh and into bones and magic.

Riven in my peripheral vision; his face a solid mask of pain as he watches me.

The crack of the whip stops, and that red-haired woman gets up, strolling closer, her cruel face looking at me with a half sneer that holds no amusement. Gatilla.

“You disobeyed me, Caryan. Now kneel.”

“No.”

“Kneel or the punishment will be worse, angel.”

“I will not kneel, Gatilla. Not even in front of you.”

The invisible shackles of dark magic pull tighter, cutting flesh, and I bare my teeth. It’s all pain. There’s no distinction anymore, yet I remain standing, my magic fighting hers. The red-haired woman steps even closer and cups my cheek with her silver-clawed hand. Sweat has gathered on her forehead, though, from the strain as she tries to push me to my knees. In vain.

Her voice drops low, only for me to hear as she leans in. “You’re disobeying me in front of everyone, Caryan. I cannot let that pass, you know that.”

Only then does the audience in that hall become clear. The room, full of women and bristling, dark power and glimmering,amber eyes. The witch pulls back and claps her hands, an axe appearing in them.

“I will take your wings, angel, for this disobedience,” she declares, loud again. Then she swings the axe, and unspeakable pain sears through my back.

I scream, instead of the angel, who just endures the pain. I scream and scream and scream.

Light. There is light when I open my eyes. Arms still hold me, and I turn to the side just in time to vomit. Not that I have anything in me, but those pictures, the sight of the dead wings, severed from Caryan’s body, that pain prickling through my own…

65

Melody

I retch some more, sweat covering my whole body, but the hands around me don’t let go. I wipe saliva away before I dare to look up into Caryan’s eyes, the gold-rimmed black in them slowly shifting into a grayish blue like a misty morning.

A rustle makes him look up from me as Calianthe, accompanied by armed, sinister-looking dryads, enters the clearing. I blink, and arrows come into clear focus, the sinews of their bows strung tight, all of them aimed at us. The queen’s head is raised high as she strides up to us. A semi-transparent gown of white fabric flows down her body, making her look like a flower in the wind.

“Caryan,” she says in a royal tone.

“Calianthe.” Caryan returns her greeting, unfazed.

“One might bow his head to a queen, if not fall on a knee.”

“One might do the same to a king,” he retorts coolly.

Her snow-white eyes shift to me then, narrowing to slits before she lifts her hand. The women lower their bows. “What have you done?”

“She is on the verge of death. She needs to rest. She needs warmth. My Fortress is too far,” he says.

Calianthe nods once before she gestures to her right. Another corridor between the trees opens up. I barely register how they undress me, how they put me into the hot water, the spring’s magicburning me from the inside out, chasing off the last remnants of that bluish magic.

Slowly, so slowly, reality returns, and I start to notice the warble of birds in the trees and the buttery light that falls in columns between the heavy trunks, the green so intense it looks like a dream.

A good dream. A peaceful dream.

I want to hold on to it as long as I can.

When I look up, I find Caryan sitting in the shade next to me at the water’s edge, watching me motionlessly. The angel with his black wings and his short, black hair rustling in the mild breeze in the midst of that incredibly beautiful greenery—it looks like a page torn out of a fairytale book. One where the characters live happily ever after and vanquish all evil.

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