Page 55 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Gatilla put him through hell. And he still came out unbroken.

Someone other than Caryan would have long ago gone mad from the pain. It was dark, dark magic. Some before her aunt had tried to do the same but failed. Black heretics. Feared and utterly skilled mages and witches. But the result had always been madness for the receiver of such runes. Had always ended in a fatal bloodbath, the dark creation usually killing everyone around, including the heretics themselves.

Blair was grateful that Caryan was alive, the forgotten gods help her, but the truth was—he shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t have been possible.

She carefully touched his skin, the runes there. She hissed and pulled her hand back at the singeing pain the touch evoked before the runes dispersed like a swarm of bees, slithering away from her hand as if they didn’t wish to be touched.

A sinister kind of power sizzled through the air then.

Blair drew in a sharp breath as she sensed the magnitude of Caryan’s unfettered power for the first time. As if it had been hiding from her senses all that time and only now revealed itself.

No, not he. Her aunt. Because she held the reins of his power, controlled it.

But when had Caryan grown so powerful? When in the last two years? And that was even without him having accessto the reservoir.

It was so strong, so endless, it knocked the breath from her lungs.

Finally, she said, “Palisandre has cellars and cellars full of weapons forged of Nefarian steel.”

No matter how powerful Caryan was, she still didn’t want that war. And no matter how powerful, they still had brought the angels down with Nefarian steel. Caryan might be the strongest fae in existence, but he was not immortal.

He offered her his profile as he answered, “Not anymore. There is no Nefarian steel left in this world, your aunt made sure of that.”

“What? You can’t know that for sure.”

“I do, as a fact, know for sure.” She sucked in a sharp breath at the reprimand.

“Well, even if that is true, there is always some secret stash of someone clever who likes to trade. One arrow is more than enough to kill you.”

His eyes flickered when he looked back at her fully. As if he would weigh his next words carefully. “Maybe. But I’m immune to Nefarian steel.”

A confession.

Her eyes widened. She wanted to ask—because of the runes? But she kept quiet because it would ruin the moment.

So she clamped down on her damn curiosity and asked instead, “How do you feel?”

It was the closest she ever got to talking with him about what Gatilla had done to him. She’d once before asked him and he said nothing. Just nothing. She’d never asked again.

His face was severe in the dim light, the candles accentuating his cruel beauty. Desire undid her so hard she could barely breathe. She needed him again. She resisted the urge to run her fingers past the sculpted muscles of his abdomen and down. Shit, they had one night, and she didn’t want to spend it talking about war, selfish as it was. No, all she wanted was to stay in his arms forever and let the world pass them by.

She thought that, again, he’d leave her without an answer, but he finally said, “It feels strange, I must admit.”

She could imagine. No more torture. No more pain. Just all that power.

She leaned in and whispered against his naked chest. “We can’t go to war. There will be too many casualties.” Gods help her, she remembered her mother’s vivid stories about the Demon Wars all too well. She couldn’t risk their lives. She couldn’t allow anything to happen to them.

“Another war is coming inevitably, Blair. Whether you want it or not.”

“We struck a truce with Palisandre.” She sounded almost defiant.

“I’ve waged more wars than I can count. A brittle alliance can never be mended. It can only break, and it will.”

“Gatilla’s been planning that for a while now, hasn’t she?” She didn’t bother to keep the bitterness from her voice. The spite.

“She has.”

“You could have told me.”

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