Page 115 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

His eyes are a whirling dark now, as is his aura, but there are those gold and blue tendrils leaking in again. His gaze rests on my lips; his face unreadable when he says, “You’re begging for trouble. I warned you, and yet you chose to ignore it. What am I to do with you?”

His magic still ebbs off him and around me like a dark mist, but it’s no longer biting and hissing and snarling. Instead, it feels like dew and velvet and something night-streaked when it ghosts around my naked skin, twining around my ankles and wrists.

Caryan leans down as if to kiss me, so close his lashes brush my cheeks. I’m unable to shrink away as he whispers right into me, “Do Ineedto hurt you?”

His voice is like dark silk, gliding over my nervous, restless skin; twin to his magic that keeps twirling around me, sliding over my belly, under my pants, and up my bare legs.

All I manage is to shake my head, no longer sure what’s happening. I feel as if the ground had been swept from under my feet.

All of a sudden, I feel so terribly, utterly young. Lost and fragile.

I know how to fight, but not here.

Not with these strange, new rules. Not against him.

I want to hide, but he’s still holding my chin, staying so close.Not yet done with me.

“No? Then tell me what will keep you from running off, trying to kill yourself. Tell me what I must do.”

His fingers tighten, digging into my bruises, making me flinch. Hurting me as if to remind me what hecoulddo. So easily.

I feel my fear rising in answer, worse than ever before. I realize I’ve started to tremble. I only barely register that I’ve let go of my T-shirt, that my fingers are digging into his black shirt instead. Only barely register that I’ve wriggled free of his grip, leaning into him, hiding my head in his chest, breathing him in while tears well in my eyes, seeping into his shirt.

We stand like that for a while. I can’t tell for how long. I can’t tell how he will punish me for this impudence.

When he tries to step back, I only hold on tighter and whisper, without knowing where the words come from, “You were gone. You were just gone. You left me.”

My voice comes out shaky. I feel him stiffening under my fingers but not pulling away.

He looks down at me, his eyes an indifferent gray, sizing me up—for what, I don’t know.

He says nothing, so I ask too quietly, knowing too well it isn’t appropriate—it’s uncouth: “Are you going to go away again?”

It takes him a long time to respond. His voice is raspy when he says, “I won’t be at the palace the day after tomorrow, but all the other nights I will.”

My cheeks heat at the wordnight, although he certainly means nothing by it. Right, the equinox festivities in town.They are celebrating Gatilla’s death day—that’s what the servants said.

He shifts his weight before stepping back a little and freeing my body.

Without another glance, he turns his back on me and walks over to the kitchen. A bright light jumps on above, probably on his silent command.

He doesn’t look at me when he says soberly, “Come over here, I want to see to those wounds on your arms.”

I do, resisting the urge to pick up my shirt and pull it back over my head, but he barely looks at me anyway when I approach.

“Your arm,” he demands.

Only then do I notice the patches of raw, bloodied skin where I’d skidded over the stony ground. He cleans my left arm first, then my right.

Eventually, he says, “Sit down. I want to see to those too.” He juts his chin toward my naked belly.

I climb onto a stool, so he can clean those ugly cuts too. I stay silent all the while, not daring to look at him once, nor to flinch when it hurts. Not after what I’ve just said to him. It all feels so surreal—those words that I whispered.Where did they come from? Did I mean them?

But Ifeeltheir truth. I feel his physical absence like a hole in my body, as if a part of me is missing if he isn’t around. Had always been missing. It scares me.

I don’t dare to contemplate whether he might feel anything vaguely similar.

Of course he doesn’t.Why the fuck would he?I bite my lower lip, hard.

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