Page 34 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

“My parents. Or what I think my parents might have looked like. I never met them, but I needed a picture in my mind, so I made one.”

Made one and placed it here so I could imagine them watching me at night.

I don’t know why I’m telling him this.

To my surprise, he retorts, “They didn’t look like that. Your father, well, you’re quite close, but your mother didn’t look like that.”

More questions start to form, but before I can ask them, an inhuman scream cuts through the air.Lyrian.

“Melody, don’t!” Riven says, reaching for me, but I’m already out the door.

I storm downstairs, pushing the double-winged door open. I don’t know why. But I need to know what made Lyrian scream that way. I need to know what fate awaits me once they take me.

What I see freezes the blood in my veins.

Lyrian is suspended several feet off the ground, held up by the outstretched arm of the man who’d been sitting in the armchair before. His hand is closed around Lyrian’s throat.

There is a lot of blood. It’s dripping from Lyrian’s neck, seeping into his fine tunic, the carpet. Blood that drips from the Dark Lord’s chin. From hisfangs.

At the sight of me, Lyrian starts pleading. “Take her! Take her! You can see in my blood that I spoke the truth! I kept her for you, my lord. Your Highness. I hid her away, for all these years, just for you when the time was ripe! I’ll give her to you in exchange for my life. One life debt for another.”

There is little human in the snarl the Dark Lord lets out when he says, “Liar.”

Rage leashes his aura, and I swear the room is darkening with shadows.

“We can’t lie, my lord—you know—”

“Do not tempt me, Lyrian. Benignity is not a virtue I am known to have. Your breed has been allowed to thrive for too long.”

“Please, my king. You know the prophecy. The curse if you kill me—” Lyrian starts again, cut off once more by another growl that makes my insides turn cold.

“I don’t care as much about curses as you might have heard. I’ll claim her, but you—if you ever once so much asinteractwith any other fae, I will personally skin you alive, Lyrian. You have already been banned from the fae lands, but I hereby strip you of any belongings, any rights and declare you an outlaw. Prey foranyonewho seeks bloodshed, or redemption.”

Lyrian falls utterly silent. The Dark Lord loosens his grip around his neck, and Lyrian tumbles inelegantly to the ground, clutching his sore throat, fumbling for a necklace that is no longer there but in the hand of the Dark Lord.

I watch, spellbound, as he crumbles the object of gems and gold in his fingers, as if it is a piece of paper, until nothing but ash sifts down.

The effect is instant.

The Lyrian at his feet is no longer the Lyrian I know, but an aged, shrunken version of himself. His cheeks are gaunt and sunken, his sharp features even more distinct, with hollow eyes and pointed ears.

The necklace was a glamour. And Lyrian… is an elf too.

After this, the Dark Lord’s head turns to me.

My heart stops for a few precious seconds.

Raven-black hair offsets his pale, almost entirely white skin, those cruel cheekbones, his chiseled chin. He is even more beautiful than Riven, if that is possible. He is the most beautiful man I have ever seen.

But his eyes…

His eyes are even more extraordinary than his face.

They are all black, save for his irises, which gleam an undiluted, deep red. But the color isn’t static like in everyone else’s eyes. No. The pigment in those eyes seems to move, almost like the waves of an ocean at sunset, bundled into two marbles.

They are frightening and at the same time utterly, indescribably beautiful.

I can’t help but stare. Mesmerized.

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