Page 99 of Bound to the Orc King

I close my eyes and will a connection, picturing the mind of each pixie as a hopscotch square. I don’t need to go deep—I just need to touch. I bounce from one to the next until I finally brush against the leader’s mind.

Then I strain forward.“Moon Goddess? Are you there?”

Silence.

I picture myself standing on the moon, and this time, when I move forward, I’m able to keep going—I’m past the barrier exactly like I hoped. Huge bounding leaps carry me to the lip of a crater that looks exactly like the one in the real world. I take a running leap and soar outward, landing as soft as you please on the moon-dust ground of its center. Her presence fills the air with so much magic it makes my teeth ache.

“Goddess, I need you to teach me how to say ‘release’ in the celestial language in order to free you.”

A string of notes sings through my mind, the sound so pure and sweet tears prickle my eyes, wetness tickling against my closed lashes.

I sing them back to her.

Impatience and a feeling of wrongness flow over me.

“Then show me again,”I snap, remembering Aldronn's lesson about repetition and practice.

The goddess sings, over and over, and I struggle to mimic exactly what she’s doing. I’m not great with languages, so I stop trying to think of it as language and instead think of it as a song. I used to sing a lot with my mother when I was little. Those memories come to me now. My mother’s voice fills my mind, singing along with me, helping me get the notes right.

Pulling away from the moon, I blink my eyes open, returning to my body. A wiggle of my finger tells the pixies to return, and they scurry out of the hole and take to the air.

Then I open my mouth and sing.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Aldronn

My bride sings a song of such beauty it almost stops my newly beating heart.

Angry drums beat down from overhead, but every eye in the room is glued to the low dome filling the center of the floor. Fissures crack across the white shell with sharp snaps, bleeding blinding white light.

I jerk upright, ignoring any lingering pain, and wrap my hands around May’s shoulders to pull her back to me. My eyes snap closed, my body curling protectively around my bride, my muscles locked tight, bracing for impact. But no shards of shell strike us.

Gasps and murmurs come from around the room—May’s sweet little sound the loudest to my ears—as the Moon Goddess flies free of her prison.

May did it! My amazing bride did it! She freed the goddess!

The Moon Goddess hangs in the air, a swirling ball of white energy shot through with light-blue lightning, looking exactly as she did when she summoned me to find my moon bound bride. Beautiful music fills the cavern as she spins faster and starts to expand.

Magic explodes outward in a wash of heat and light.

Starfall comes awake, instead of remaining in a healing coma for another day, as she normally would. My old friend shakes her head and snorts, rolling up onto her belly. Then her blue eyes are as captured by the goddess as the rest of us. I’m glad she won’t miss whatever comes next.

Rune falls to his knees, his amber eyes filled with awe.

Shadow stands stunned to silence for a change, no clever quips springing to his tongue.

Wranth holds Naomi close, both of them staring openmouthed at the goddess.

I realize I am as well, and force my jaw closed.

May is perfectly still in my arms, her hands clutching the forearm I have wrapped around her as if she’ll fly away if I let go.

Selena sits by her side, one hand still wrapped around my bride’s ankle. Awe fills her eyes.

The only one who looks more curious than impressed is the dragon. I half expect him to pull out quill and parchment and begin taking notes.

The Dark God pulses above us, his deep-blue lightning streaking toward the Moon Goddess. Her lightning leaps toward his, the two meeting in the middle and fusing together until a continuous stream of magical power pours back and forth between them.

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