Page 227 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Blair blinks a few times as the air saws out of her.

Melody stands, the sword right at the demon’s eye. “Think twice,” she says, her voice impressive with contempt.

The beast blinks and Blair suppresses a sound as saliva drips from its mouth and lands on her shoulder.

All three of them startle as another growl sounds, the entire mountain shaking with the impact as the other demon pushes itself through the cave mouth and comes towards them. The green demon pulls his head back slightly, as if passing on a meal to make room for the even bigger predator.

Blair swallows against her dried-out throat. The other demon found them—the gargantuan monster they’d encountered in the tunnel. Horror coils through her and settles somewhere deep in her stomach. Here, in the hall, it looks even bigger. Bluish scales seem to shimmer on their own when he moves, his body so heavy and huge the bones crush to dust under its weight.

Instinct makes Blair press herself even deeper into the bones, as if she somehow can make herself smaller. Invisible. A motion born out of primal fear and despair and the knowledge that she’s lying here like some pathetic weakling with her magic gone.

The demon pauses in front of them, crouching low, sniffing them. Another blast of steam washes over them as it exhales, the temperature soaring in answer. But, Abyss, Melody just stands there, looking the bluish behemoth right in the eye, unfazed by the size of its bared teeth.

“Don’t,” she says, her head raised high, her voice pure command. Almost like Caryan’s.

The irony of it doesn’t escape Blair. But the demon halts, his eyes blinking slowly as if he, too, is surprised by her not running and screaming.

Melody pulls up her sleeve and holds the arm with the runes up to him. “You recognize this, don’t you?” she probes on, in the same unforgiving tone.

And, Abyss help them, Blair finds herself actually holding herbreath as the demon angles his head, one huge, golden eye fastening on that tattoo. It blinks once.

Melody’s voice is strained but firm as she continues. “You obey your owner. I am your owner. I carry his markings and his magic.”

The two demons—dragons, whatever—exchange a glance, a silent communication between them. The blue one growls again, lower and more viciously. The green one retreats another step, not taking its hungry eyes off Blair yet.

“Help me. Please,” Melody says, still looking at the blue demon. “We don’t have much time,” she adds, as if the creature can understand her. As if it wassentient,and not just a hungry beast. But it cocks his head, considering her words.

“Keep going. I take it as a good sign that they haven’t eaten us yet,” Blair bleats.

Melody shoots her an exasperated look.

The greenish one growls again, and another waft of steam and hot breath blows Blair’s hair back. The bluish one swishes its massive tail once in warning, before it bends its impossibly large head down to Melody. Blair stares as its snout touches her body, so frail, so tiny compared to the monster next to her.

But Melody doesn’t retreat. Doesn’t even flinch. She just stands there and, eventually, lifts her free hand and lays it against the leathery skin, right between its flaring nostrils.

Blair’s throat has dried out by the time Melody says with a jerk of her chin, “Come, Blair, let’s go. Get on his back.”

“What? Are you mad? No fucking way.”

“Come on, Blair,” she says again.

Blair watches with rapt fascination as Melody, indeed, starts climbing up the dragon’s back. At another snort from the greenish one, Blair gets to her feet, too, and with one last glance at the blue dragon, climbs onto its back and slips into a scaled dip behind Melody.

For a moment, grief slices through Blair like a sword dipped in fire.Her beautiful wyvern. Without her magic, she will never ride on her again. Never taste the wind in her heart, let the coldness rip allaround her, never scream along with her beast into the storm. Her beast, her friend. Herfamily. Real or not real.

“Are you alright?”

Her head snaps up as Melody turns to her, as if she felt Blair’s shift.

“I’m riding on a fucking demon instead of dying by its teeth. I’d say I couldn’t be better right now,” Blair snarls back.

Melody twists back to the front, just as the demon turns its massive body and starts to run towards the tunnel it just came from in a lizard-like motion. Melody and Blair reflexively crouch close to his back as the dragon slithers back into the narrow tunnel, shaking loose more stones and rocks, his massive wings tucked in tight. Melody’s holding on to two spikes that have sprouted out of his back, and Blair can’t do anything other than cling to her slender body.

They cut through the darkness that now seems to make way for them. Night shimmers at the end of the tunnel—the light of the stars, Blair realizes, thrown into the endless darkness.

The tunnel ends in an abyss, and the dragon plummets before it throws out its impossible wings and they are airborne.

72

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