Page 92 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

“You want me to go to Niavara?” I ask carefully. Again, it stirs, its pages humming in agreement. I suck in my lower lip. Why did Caryan give me this book? Because it called for me? There’s no way he can read those runes, or can he? If he’s old,veryold, he maybe can. And why can I read it? “Can Caryan read you?” I ask the book.

It stays silent, the ink of the message fading back into oblivion. A no.

“So only me then,” I say quietly. A gentle flap of a single page. I run a hand through my hair. I need to go to Niavara then. I close the book and carefully place it under my cushion before I get up and walk into the bathroom.

I turn on the shower and start to scrub the filth off my skin before I walk over to my bed, exhausted. But when I lie down, I can’t rest. My mind’s too full of all the things that happened. My mother… anelf.And my father… human. I, able to read runes. Runes I’ve never seen before. A half-blood. It still sounds surreal.

Instead of falling asleep, I find myself looking up at the eerie sanguine moon and the glittering stars around it. I grab one of the sheets of paper and start to draw. Before I know what I’m doing, what my own hand’s performing, I find myself looking into Caryan’s chiseled, picture-perfect face. But those eyes feel lifeless without their colors.

I get up and open the duffle bag, only to find all my colors dried out from the desert heat.

***

The next day in the kitchen, I peel violet and deep-yellow potatoes and carrots, their colors so vivid that I sneak two of them into my trouser pockets, determined to use the pigments of the flesh that stains my hands to make a paste.

The next night, before I leave, I ask Nidaw for some goose fat. Back in my room, having the evening off, I grind those potatoes and carrots and mix them with the fat and some water.

I’d need the biggest palette of colors one could possibly have to paint Caryan’s eyes.

Since I don’t have any color safe for the pastes of slight purple and golden ochre I just made, I take out one of the sketches I made of Riven’s face and paint his eyes and some of the cabochons that dangle from the rings in his ears, until the picture looks so real I have the feeling he’s indeed watching me.

28

Blair, two years before Gatilla’s death

Blair blocked out everything except for the heart song of the wind as she soared through the night-enshrouded sky, tasting mist and clouds that would soon be filled with the spray of blood and the acrid tang of murder. She ducked into a crouch over the massive neck of her wyvern as the half-solid, half-misty beast under her body spread her wings wide and arced down.

“Very, very quiet,” Blair whispered against the wind screaming in her face. She knew her wyvern could hear her. Knew it in her bones, in the way the creature banked as she spotted the first fires in the watchtowers, just where Caryan had marked them on the maps.

Blair sat up tighter. Her body was still sore from the last night with Caryan. Still sore from what he did after she agreed to go to war for him and for her aunt. A punishment for her snarl. The tone she dared to strike with him before.

She’d known he wouldn’t let a thing like that pass without retribution. She shivered when she thought of the feeling of his body against hers. But she pushed the memory away for now, treasuring that secret.

She glanced back over her shoulder to see her coven falling into formation behind her. The witches like a living swarm of night, silver nails and teeth glinting, the air alive with the beats of wings.

Apocalyptic riders.

Blair felt a stir of nervousness shadowing her impatience. Her eagerness for bloodletting.

To prove herself.

Surprise me,Caryan basically demanded.You’re predictable,he’d said.

Oh, she wouldn’t take that. She’d show him how wrong he was. She’d bring him the head of the cadre stationed here after they’d had their fun killing the high elves. The head of Kyrith, the famous mountain lion of Palisandre.

Yet… that tower was full of high elves. The soldiers stationed up here in the north bore inherent ice magic.Wind wielders and blizzard summoners,Caryan said.

Taking on a high elf was different than anything they’d done before—killing farmers or the occasional, unlucky high elf crossing their path. Here, there were at least a dozen high elves. Trained soldiers. Armed to the teeth.

Dangerous. They were dangerous. Witches could—would—die tonight.

Blair swallowed the lump in her throat and resisted the urge to turn around one more time and cast a last glance at Sofya and Aurora. She knew Aurora would be stern-faced. Her mother had cornered her that morning after battle brief, when Blair had donned her armor and weapons and filled her saddlebags.

“You can’t be serious. You can’t allow this, Blair. The witches barely survived the Demon War. Nor the fight against the angels.”

“Are you questioning my orders?” Blair’s voice had gone quiet as she stared her mother down like she would have any other witch of her coven. Yet Aurora hadn’t backed off. Sofya and Aurora were like day and night, but not in that regard. Sofya was fire, but Aurora was stone. Both unbendable.

“No, I’m questioning your sanity.”

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