Page 68 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

He closes his eyes, trying hard to focus on the water nymph’s touches. He forces himself not to watch how Melody kneels over Caryan but to concentrate on the lap of the woman above him, her hips demanding his full attention as she grinds her body against his.

He isn’t in the mood, though. Not with this tension hangingbetween all of them, the air thick and charged with Caryan’s nightmarish power.

It’s only when he hears Caryan say coolly, “That’s enough. You can go now,” and then, “Get me a real woman,” that Riven allows himself to look across again, only to see Melody, ashen-faced, her eyes silver-lined as she hurries out of the room.

As if on cue, Sarynx saunters over, the blonde elf waiting for Caryan to rise, and the two of them disappear from the room. Eventually Riven lets himself feel again, succumbing to the revelry around him.

***

Later, the orgies are still going on in some dark corners; in others, people are already sleeping, hair ruffled and limbs entangled, when Riven finds himself once again venturing toward Caryan’s private rooms. He knocks and the door opens for him, Caryan’s magic obeying its ruler’s will.

He finds Sarynx sprawled naked on the couch, making no move to cover herself. If anything, triumph glitters in her cerulean eyes. Caryan stands in front of the huge window, wearing only trousers. The air still smells heavily of sex. Alotof sex.

Riven ignores the blonde elf, who loves nothing more than attention and power and undiluted admiration from men and hates Riven for the fact that he doesn’t lust after her the way Kyrith does.

He never has. He never will.

“Leave,” Caryan growls at Sarynx, and Riven likes the way she—who looks at everyone down her nose, except for Caryan himself—scrambles to her feet, collects her clothes, and slips out the door, not even taking the time to get dressed again. She rushes past Riven, not without throwing him a lethal glance. He would almost laugh if it wasn’t for the somber mood he could feel surrounding Caryan like a void, twin to his own since Melody stormed out of the room crying.

“I had the feeling you wanted to talk to me,” he says, helpinghimself to one more glass of vermilion wine before he approaches Caryan, watching the ever-shifting gold-and-black tattoo sliding like a snake over Caryan’s body. It’s made up of the runes and beautiful symbols that Ciellara tattooed there, which shift and rearrange themselves like a living creature, wandering over his body as they please—or so Riven suspects, although he’s never asked Caryan about it.

Sometimes he even has the feeling that the tattoo reacts to his presence, because, as soon as he nears, it always seems to draw closer to him, gliding to the place nearest to Riven’s body, which is currently on Caryan’s right side, the tattoo now stretching from Caryan’s neck down his right arm and right flank.

“Then your feeling betrayed you,” Caryan responds coolly after a heavy silence. “But since you’re already here, tell me whose idea it was to have her serving at the celebrations. Yours?”

Riven stills. “I’d never have put her in harm’s way. You know that.”Definitely not in such a tasteless manner. Definitely not after I swore that oath to her.

The oath—he meant every word. The moment he said it, it felt like the most natural thing to do. It was the only way to truly protect Melody from himself.

He would die for her. Would rather die than harm her—that’s what it meant.

That realization hits him somewhere deep in his bones. He pushes it away.

He has other problems.

They spent the whole last week combing through Caryan’s kingdom, tracking down the spies from Palisandre that had started to infiltrate the lands, coming in over the border to the Emerald Forest, where the wall of wards around Caryan’s kingdom is the weakest. Tracking down his own people and cruelly killing them—that’s what Riven has been doing the last few days.

Even more had come since the rumors spread that Caryan had found the girl from Kalleandara’s prophecy and brought her here.

They’d taken rotations, one high lord staying at the castle whilethe other three hunted down the spies, which was also unusual. Normally, Caryan sent them and didn’t go himself, but this time he did.

“Who then?” Caryan asks.

“It must have been Kyrith. I should have known. He’s hell-bent on giving Lara’s daughter a hard time, Caryan. I would have intervened, yet I thought it was your wish.”

“My wish?” Caryan’s head snaps to him too quickly, his eyes black as ebony, his voice suddenly full of barely restrained rage. Rage Riven so rarely sees in him. “Why would that be my wish?” Caryan snarls and a wave of dark, biting power pours over Riven like a deluge.

Riven grits his teeth. “I thought you might have decided to… make a statement.”

His words and tone are collected, not showing any of the rage he felt at that party when he saw Melody appear, even though he thought her long in bed, safely tucked away from all of this as he promised. He failed her, didn’t register that Kyrith had ordered her there, made her wear a dress like that, and paraded her in front of everyone to show that Ciellara’s daughter was here now. A slave. Caryan’s slave.

“A statement?”Caryan’s tone is like ice, his expression incredulous.

“To the right hand of the king of Palisandre.”Ciellara’s father. A snub to the whole of Palisandre. A provocation. A demonstration of power.

Caryan looks at him then, really looks at him for the very first time today, no doubt feeling Riven’s emotions. “You think I need to resort to such blatant methods? That I am so desperate for their attention?”

“I thought you did it to draw them out. To intimidate them. But how can I know what you are thinking, Caryan, when you don’t share any of your thoughts with me when it comes to the girl? Why not leave with her immediately and look for the relics?”

---