14
Kneel, High Priestess
Melody
“What happened, little one?” Aris demands.
I feel his worry like a knife twisting in my gut. I pull up the shields between us a little so he can’t read my wild mind but can still hear my mental voice. Then I sit up, brushing my hair out of my face, only to find my forehead slick with sweat, my heart still jackhammering.
“I talked to him,” I say after a while, running my hand over Aris’s warm body. “He…hells, I thought he’d kill me at the end.” A shuddering breath escapes my lips and I look away, into the night. I can hear crickets beneath the constant noise of human-world machines—soothing, their nocturnal chant.
“And?”
I tell him everything that happened and end with, “Riven. I think he’s going to send Riven.”
“It was a wise thing to do. You did well,” Aris says finally, pride in his voice. Pride I really don’t deserve. “You do,” he says, feeling my emotions.
“Yeah—did I do well? Bartering our lives away?”
“Not that. I know that no one has the courage to confront Caryan like that. No one but you.”
“Or lacking the wits, you mean,” I counter.
I flinch when a black vortex appears in the middle of the room. What the actual hells?
Out of it steps the second most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. He could be Caryan’s brother—they look so alike—if not for Riven’s remarkable lilac eyes and the warmth in them as they rest on me, then on Aris.
I just sit on the bed and stare, suddenly unable to move.
He’s alive. Alive! Whatever Caryan did to him, he looks fine.
Relief floods me, because I’d assumed the worst. I’ve seen with my own eyes how Caryan broke every bone in a Nefarian’s body, kept him in dungeons, only to heal him and do it again and again—because that Nefarian dared to cut my arm.
But then, Riven could have been hurt and healed.
That’s how fae do it: break it, heal it, break it again.
And I know better than to assume Riven would ever show how hurt he is to the outside world.
I wish I could see his aura, but he’s veiled it behind a grayish mist. As understandable as it is, I can’t help feeling hurt by that.
His eyes dim a little with worry as they briefly glide over my body. I startle, and heat creeps into my cheeks. Had I known he’d come immediately…hells, I’m in a washed-out shirt and panties, my hair a mess and still sweaty.
“How are you?” Riven asks finally, and I feel tears at the sound of his voice—a voice I’ve dreamed about at night—melodious and soft like velvet.
“Okay,” I answer shyly, looking down at my legs, thin and paler than ever.
I feel ashamed that he’s seeing me like this.
I never believed him when he called me beautiful, although he is fae, and fae can’t lie.
But right now? Abyss, I don’t want him to look at me as if I’m something to pity.
To hells with my last shred of dignity. I look back up and ask, “And you?”
Gods, this is awkward. Part of me wants to run to him and let him hold me, breathe him in, feel him. Another part wishes the ground would open and swallow me whole.
“I fare as fate allows,” he counters smoothly.
I study his face more closely, ignoring the dull ache in my heart. He’s still unbearably beautiful. Yet there are shadows under his eyes that weren’t there last year, and his features are even sharper, as if he’s lost weight—yet he’s as tall and muscular as ever.
“Caryan will keep this portal open. It’s going to transport us to Avandal. The high priestess will meet us there. You might want to change into something more…formal,” he suggests quietly, his eyes flitting to Aris, as if he can’t bear to look at me while saying it.
“Now? Okay. Sure!” I scramble to my feet, letting my hair fall into my face so he can’t see my embarrassment, and pad into the next room—Blair’s room.
Clothes are everywhere, strewn and discarded like afterthoughts.
Where she gets them from, I can only speculate, and none of those theories are good.
The same goes for the money she provides us, yet I can’t deny my gratitude.
I fish through a pile until I find a black t-shirt and matching leggings and grab my black ankle boots. On the way out, I stop in front of the mirror, meeting my own brown eyes. And suck in a sharp breath. I look like a wraith. But…not much I can do about that now.
I shrug on a black leather jacket to hide my thin arms, then quickly brush my hair. I tie it back into a ponytail before I finally return to Riven and Aris. I hate how Riven’s gaze lingers on me as if he can see right through my clothes to the scrawny thing I’ve become.
“Let’s get this over with,” I mentally grumble to Aris, jerking my chin toward the vortex.
“Aris might not—” Riven starts.
“Oh, Aris is so coming,” I cut in, shame making my voice sharper than I intended, my head snapping back to him. “Let’s go,” I add, grabbing Aris before he can wriggle free.
“I am a demon whose terrifying greatness evoked nightmares in his enemies and not to be carried,” he complains as I snatch him up.
“A favor for a favor. I talked to Caryan as you wanted, and now I need you to look harmless and cuddly in return,” I shoot back mentally. “No terrifying greatness for now.”
He grumbles but relents in my arms as I squeeze him against my chest.
Riven reins in his worry and becomes again that ruthlessly collected and shamelessly polite fae monarch. He offers me his elegant hand when I approach him and the portal bristling next to him. I ignore it.
“How’s that going to work? Does it hurt?” I ask instead, eyeing the vortex. I’m not ready to touch him. I might just start to cry if I did.
“No. You will feel nothing. It’s an angelic portal that will transport us directly to Avandal. It will be over within seconds,” he answers casually, obviously feeling none of the inner turmoil that ravages me. I nod, and finally, he lets his hand sink back to his side.
I briefly think of Blair. But I would come back for her. Then I step up to him, Aris wedged between us like a shield.
“Do not think I don’t know what you’re doing—using me as some kind of buffer,” he rumbles as I step into Riven’s addictive halo of lilac and moss and rain-wet woods.
“That’s included in the favor,” I shoot back, keeping my face carefully neutral as Riven lifts his arms and pulls me close without a warning.
The world around us starts to bend and then dissipate, and I really hope Riven blames the heat that’s suddenly coming off me on the portal and not on the effect of his closeness.
“Why don’t you just tell him that you missed him, little one?”
I would scowl at Aris if Riven wasn’t watching. Instead, I do nothing and make sure my mental shields are locked solid so the busybody dragon can’t snoop in my chaos.
“I do not need to feel your emotions to know how nervous you are,” he says when he feels me pull up the shields entirely . “Your heartbeat is elevated and—”
“Can you just…not,” I cut him off. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Let’s drop it.”
My inner voice is sharper than I intended, but I don’t want any of them to know I’m barely holding it together. Seeing Riven after all this time brings up emotions I thought I’d locked and buried for good.
A second of absurd, all-consuming darkness follows, then a blur of color and stardust as folds of worlds ripple past us.
The presence of Aris and Riven is the only solid anchor before we suddenly stand under the stars of the fae world.
I step away from Riven quickly and blink away a slight dizziness.
Then I look up at the firmament, the stars sparkling down like a midnight dress stitched with a thousand diamonds.
An impossibly soft breeze is carrying the scent of wisteria, white flowers playing around my head.
Magic stirs in my veins in a sudden surge, and it takes everything to get it under control before it can tear out of me in a devastating tornado.
“Are you alright?” Aris asks, clearly concerned.
“I’m good.”
“Don’t lie. I can feel your discomfort burning through your shields.”
“My magic…Aris, it wants out. But I have no clue how. I feel like a volcano about to erupt and destroy everything.” There—I spit it out.
“You won’t. Just let it out slowly.”
“I don’t know how, Aris.” My mental voice breaks and sweat gathers as that behemoth inside me stirs anew. “Gods. The last time, I killed all of them. I can’t.” The guilt I carry only makes it worse, making the perfect kindling to that thrashing and raging magic inside me.
“You won’t!” Aris growls. It’s his resolution I cling to. That gives me the power to lock the pent-up magic into a prison deep inside me.
I focus on my breathing. On my feet, rooted to the ground. On my surroundings. On anything but that roaring, ugly hells-monster inside me.
I’m here, standing on a hill. The air is filled with a noise like a thousand little wind chimes clinking in the breeze.
I turn to the sound and find myself in front of an enormous, beautiful temple.
It’s open to the elements, hewn from white marble.
Hundreds of incense burners hang from the ceiling inside.
Lanterns with a few candles in between provide just enough light.
Smoke fills the air, thick curls of it dancing in the breeze.
I’d forgotten how different the fae world is—how even the air is cleaner, clearer.
How every shape, every scent feels more intense, more beautiful, more refined.
Rich and elusive and foreign and enticing.
Even the colors are unlike anything I’ve ever seen in the human world, radiant and vibrating and magical.