Page 48 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

So Caryan allowed her out after all.Strange.Caryan isn’t known for mercy, or pity.

Yet… he should have known by the blue in Caryan’s eyes. Melody somehow caused it, Riven knows. In his experience, the blue indicates the moments Caryan comes closest to feelingsomething. And the girl made Caryan feel something after all these years.

Riven runs a hand through his hair. Yes, heshouldhave known. As he should have known so many other things, damn him. That Caryan always planned to keep her in the first place. Riven, as Caryan’s right hand, should have anticipated it. Sensed it. But he had been so focused on finding her that he never even entertained another possibility other than that Caryan would eliminate her immediately.

Riven lets out a long breath while he keeps staring at the empty cell. He was a fool.

But that Melody managed to trigger Caryan, in whatever way… maybe it’s a key. A clue, a hint to follow up on. He will take everything into consideration to cheat fate. To save his brother.

He turns and walks away, ignoring all the hushed, pleading voices from the other cells, following him up the stairs.

He stops in the hall where he dropped her bag, the black dufflebag containing all her belongings. So little. He tries not to remember the reek of desperation that clung in every fiber of her loveless, barren room. In the linen of her bedsheets. In the curtains. In the colorless carpet. The scent of distress. Of panic. Of undiluted fear and desperation, so dense it felt like acid in his nose.

No wonder she tried to fight him, to run from him in the woods. No wonder she didn’t want to go back to Lyrian’s house.

Whatever Lyrian had done to her, it was terrible. It was hard to follow Caryan’s wishes. Not only because of what Riven just said to his friend. Not only because bringing the girl here means fulfilling Kalleandara’s prophecy, knowing her presence will affect Caryan’s fate, but also to do this to her—bring her here and dump her in the middle of a cruel fae court.

She deserves some calm, some peace, some happiness, and being a slave here…

He clenches his teeth, unwilling to pursue that train of thought.

Duffle bag in hand, he walks straight to the slave quarters, following the faint trace of her scent up to a tiny room.

But when he opens the door, the room too is empty.

15

Blair

Blair sits on the landing platform, legs dangling off the edge, the cold wind soaring up, cutting into her face. To her right, the new mighty Cloudcleaver reaches like a spear, penetrating the clouds.

She’s been sitting here for two hours, trying to get her head straight while she watches her mighty wyvern circle the tower. The beast’s screeches tear through the wild currents and the hungry, moonlight-drenched quiet that’s lurking beneath, her luminous rainbow-body unbattered by the occasional hailstones.

“Yeah, I’ve missed you too,” Blair mutters.

Hells, her wyvern is so beautiful that whenever Blair watches her flying, it takes her breath away and a sentiment close to… tenderness is clefting her heart. Not for the first time Blair thinks how different she looks to all the other wyverns with her unusual iridescent scales, her two white, twirling horns, her rounded snout and a tail that ends in three long whips of silken strands, the three deadly tips shaped and sharp like dagger-blades hidden under their feathery plumes.

A creature made to inspire beauty and awe instead of bloodshed and death.

At least at first glance.

Next to her, the other wyverns, most of them massive beasts with thick, leathery skins and tails tailored to maim and kill, lookmore like instruments of war. Beautiful and terrifying in a different way.

Blair sighs, flexing her claws. It usually works—coming out here to detangle that mess of her mind and the ridiculous beating organ behind her ribs—but not this time.

Instead, she’s just started shivering from the relentless cold. The wind is so icy it can bite the flesh from your bones. Perenilla owns these lands in the north, but she doesn’t want to waste any magic to make the weather a little kinder, so this stretch of land is merciless, the landscape around Akribea nothing but dead, burned soil, covered by hoarfrost and haunted by snowstorms and blizzards.

Blair aches for the human world.

In the human world, she’d just turn the music louder and dance it off. Or go to a club. Or get her brain fucked out. She grinds her teeth.

There’s nothing worth living for here. No sun. Just rain. Cold, icy rain that might quickly turn into ice.

Abyss, she hates every second of it. So much has changed since her aunt died. And at the same time, nothing has.

She closes her eyes, baring her teeth, the cold biting her lips like a cruel lover.

It’s true what Perenilla said—shedidstand beside the carnage. She didnothingwhile Caryan killed her aunt. Slaughtering her aunt’s seven witches along with her.

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