Page 206 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

It makes my heart ache.

I never want to leave. This is a better world, a good world.

Only after a while do I realize that this is no longer a dream. That I’m in my body again, the healing water prickling deep inside me.

I look down, trying to calm my swirling thoughts. How long has Caryan been sitting here? How long have I been unconscious, entrenched in those nightmares I thought would never stop; and which I’m still untangling? How long has it been since the snowfields I thought I would never escape?

Then I notice that I’m naked, remembering vaguely that someone undressed me. It isn’t a dream anymore. Caryan is real. His wings are still there, stretched out behind him, feathers ruffled by a breeze, shielded by the shadows and the huge vines that dangle from the columns of those trees.

He is real. He…

I feel tears in my eyes before I swallow them down.

“How are you feeling?” he asks. His face is stern, his eyes shadowed. I sense that it’s a careful question.

“Alright,” I answer, maybe too lightly, because he growls at me, “Don’t lie to me.”

Despite his tone, I wade closer, silently praying that the mineralwater will hide most of my naked body. I don’t know where it comes from, this sudden need to touch him, but I stretch out my hand, brushing my fingers over one velvety wing. He tenses at the touch but doesn’t move.

“There were nightmares,” I say, more to myself than to him, as I let the soft feathers run through my fingers. I can’t shake off the feeling that he’s holding his breath. “I saw you. I mean, Iwasyou, I think. And in one of them, a red-haired woman, she—”

“She cut off my wings.” He finishes the sentence for me. His tone is dispassionate, his eyes adamantine, yet weary.

The confirmation takes my breath away. To know that they weren’t just nightmares, but what I feared they were: his past.

I look down again, the memories of all that violence still vivid in my mind. All the pain this man in front of me has endured. And caused.

He stands, and I have the feeling he wants to get away from me.

He pauses at the edge of the pool, looking down at me. “I had to give you my blood because you were dying. I didn’t want to, but I had no choice.” His voice is raw, his eyes bereft of any color, any light, his jaw hard, as if he’s angry. “What you saw weren’t dreams. They were scenes of my life.”

“But your wings—” I say.

Maybe I should be repulsed by what I saw, by the things he did. A part of me is, but my compassion is stronger. Right now, there’s nothing else I want to do but touch him again, hold him. What he had to undergo, whatever he is, whatever he was… no one deserves that. It should have broken him, but it didn’t.

“They grew back. It took a long time, but they grew back,” he says, his voice cold like the relentless, merciless ice on that mountain. “Rest. We will leave when you’re ready.” He turns to go.

I watch him, guilt roiling in my belly. “Did you—did you find the flute?”

He pauses and I spot his wings twitching as he rolls his shoulders, as if to ease his tension. He doesn’t turn to me when he says, “No. I didn’t.”

There is nothing in his voice. It’s as empty as a void. It sends me into a freefall, tumbling down a dark abyss. I failed. I disappointed him. I messed up—my chance for freedom disappearing along with it—for what it’s ever been worth.

***

Caryan barely looks at me on our hike back through that forest. His wings have disappeared again as if they were never there at all.

I’m keeping my head down as blurred memories of those nightmarish scenes push back to the surface. I can hear screams, voices begging for mercy where there had been none. The faint tinge of blood fills my nose, snippets of faces and people flaring through me. But the scenes are scrappy, no longer so clear, no longer so intense. More like an old film whose reel has been damaged, jumping randomly, the images awash and hazy, the sound disrupted. Once, something hits me, so absurdly vivid I don’t notice a root on the ground and stumble over it. Caryan grabs my arm before I fall.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, pressing a hand against my forehead, only to find it cold and sweaty.

“It will be better in a few days. This is the aftermath,” he says.

I can’t look at him. I have the feeling he doesn’t want me to anyway.

It’s very strange to witnesseverythinga person has done firsthand. It’s so intimate I can’t find words for it. I can feel that he hates it, though, feel his distaste so clearly in my body, as if it’s my own emotion resonating through every fiber. His disgust is so strong, so much deeper than mine was when I learned he had seen scenes ofmylife the same way.

But then again, there’s nothing interesting about my life. Nothing but panic attacks, the pain when Kayne and Hunter beat me up. A short life of despair and solitude—everythinga feeble shadow of his. My demons, the joke of my life.

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