Page 38 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Riven is glad Melody is still sleeping, or she would be even more afraid of him than she already is.

“Try to touch her one more time, and I’ll give you a taste of your own medicine, Kyrith.”

“Now that sounds like fun.”

As if on cue, dark flames start to singe the tips of Kyrith’s white hair—demonic flames no water or ice could douse. Stench fills the air, followed by a sharp hiss from Kyrith’s throat.

“I’ll fucking kill you—”

“You needed a trim anyway, Kyrith. It really brings out your cheekbones, you know,” Riven purrs, but his voice is laced with silky menace. He meant every word he said—he would reduce Kyrith to dust without so much as batting an eye if Kyrith so much as looked at her the wrong way again.

“You—”

“Enough now.” Caryan’s voice ripples through them, a command humming in their blood they can’t ignore even if they want to, smothering the black flames in Riven’s veins and leashing Kyrith’s attempt at retribution.

Riven is glad for that. The Dark Lord is the only one who can put a lid on Kyrith, handle him. Riven knows that Caryan’s command to stop Kyrith from hitting the girl needles Kyrith, makes him hate her even more deeply than he already does.

Kyrith loves Caryan, more than the warrior has ever loved anyone else. Not in a romantic sense, but not the way all of them love each other like brothers either, even though the bond to Caryan is stronger than anything Riven himself has ever felt before. But Kyrith has never once in his life respected anyone. Not in his old life, when he served the king of Palisandre. But he looks up to Caryan with undiluted awe and respect. That he did something Caryan didn’t tolerate hurt him, Riven knows.

That is probably why, after a moment of silence, Riven says, calm again, “She is not her mother, Kyrith. You have to see that.”

“Her blood runs in the girl’s veins,” Kyrith blurts.

“She hardly knew her. She is not like her. She doesn’t deserve your hatred. She is a girl who grew up with that monster.”

“Like calls to like.”

“She is notlikeus,you blanched, dimwitted brute,” Riven spits back. Why did he even try?

Kyrith hisses at that but says nothing more. Caryan doesn’t turn back to them, but Riven knows he has followed every word.

Riven glances toward Ronin, the red-haired former witcher, who’s as quiet as Caryan. Ronin’s eyes meet Riven’s, a silent communication confirming that he, too, felt Caryan’s strange surge of emotion in Lyrian’s house and doesn’t know what to make of it.

All talking stops when they eventually reach the border of Caryan’s kingdom. The two Trochetian horses, powerful and rare demons from another world that can take on any shape their owner desires—currently in the form of two black, sleek sports cars—are waiting where they left them days ago.

One door opens on a silent command, and Caryan gets in, as Ronin and Kyrith walk over to the other demon. Riven’s glad to ride with Caryan. He carefully puts Melody down on the backseat—the demon shifting slightly to create the space that hadn’t been there before to accommodate her too—before Riven gets in on the passenger seat.

He leans back and closes his eyes for a moment as the door seals shut.

He’s tired and he wonders whether Caryan is tired too. But when he glances at his king, Caryan looks as alert as ever. Riven exhales and closes his eyes again. It is a long ride back after a long night already.

When Riven opens his eyes the next time,the Fortress—as the citizens call the huge modern complex of concrete, glass, and magic, enthroned on top of a hill overlooking the town Niavara below—gleams in the darkness, as if alive from within. A beacon in the nightfor so many.

Home.

The word settles deep in Riven’s bones as he sits up in his seat.Every time he returns, he can’t help but think that this is the first real home he’s ever had. Khalix, the desert lands on a continent far west of Palisandre, never felt that way to him, although he grew up there. Not to even mention Palisandre. He certainly never felt as if he belonged there. But Niavara—the town, the Fortress, the whole continent, being at Caryan’s side—has become a part of him. And vice versa.

Sometimes it is hard to believe that only twenty years ago, before Caryan took over the whole deserted continent and declared it his kingdom, making Niavara the capital of the lands of the two moons, there’d been nothing but wasteland and elven ruins.

Niavara itself had been merely a few crumbling stones. Just another town that had been abandoned, its name long forgotten after the veils between the other worlds had started to tear, allowing all forms of dangerous creatures to seep in through the rips. The rumors claimed that all the city’s inhabitants fell victim to a raid of specters hundreds of years ago. Demons had feasted on their souls before they moved up to the fallen city Avander with its once-famous harbor, before the angels finally swept in to kill them.

Old stories of old times. Long before the angels became extinct themselves.

Riven clenches his teeth. They—his kind—had hunted the angels down, not thinking they might need their special talents once again because those rips became more and more as the balance of magic tipped further.

More monsters came in every year. Monsters that could easily kill high elves.

They arrive at the Fortress. Both demons shift into the shape that earned them their names—black horses with slick, leathery skin; sharp teeth; eerie red eyes; and taloned claws instead of hooves; long, dark tails swishing behind them—as soon as they climbed out.

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