14 #2
“It’s beautiful here,” I breathe; briefly awe-struck.
This is Avandal. It’s very different from the beautiful, arid nothingness of Caryan’s kingdom—those endless stretches of white desert and dunes and snow-capped mountains in the distance.
With my night vision, I can make out lush, green land.
A path leads down to a huge building, a large meadow stretching before it.
An incredibly large, blossoming tree stands at the entrance, its flowers glowing faintly pink even at night.
Next to it, a shimmering lake glistens like a polished disk under the moon, its water steaming and turquoise.
Further down the hill, down in the valley, a sea of glittering lights lies sprawled out against the backdrop of gentle, roiling hills. A city.
“It is. This is the famous temple of Avandal, the kingdom of the seven rivers. Below, the spring is born,” Aris agrees, his scales shining in the little light. “This is the Temple of Light. It’s said light elves built it thousands of years ago.”
“Light elves?”
“Oh, like the silver elves—a species long extinct,” Aris says sadly.
As I turn, I spot arms of water running down the hill, one nursing that large mirror lake, before they wind on down and on through the city like shimmering veins.
“And that building down there?” My voice is filled with awe.
“It’s the famous university of Avandal,” Aris explains, jutting his scaled chin toward it as he follows my gaze. The university Caryan mentioned. The one I agreed to attend.
“And what do they teach there?”
“Every form of magic except the dark arts. Mostly elemental magic: earth, wind, fire, water. The arts of healing. Brewing potions. Weaving spells. Creating illusions.”
“What?” I ask, feeling dumb and ignorant.
All my time at Caryan’s court—as a slave tasked with cleaning his damn huge fortress—it never occurred to me there might be something like this out there.
That there are so many different forms of magic.
I had been so overwhelmed and drained by Nidaw’s household chores and by escaping Caryan’s clutches that I never realized there might be so much more.
Cities. Continents. Different forms of magic. Actual students learning to wield it.
I look back at Riven, schooling my face into careful indifference. “Why are we here?”
“Because you were expected.” A stern female voice behind me startles me.
I turn to see a small woman with a sharp bob, strands of gray running through her formerly black hair, step out of the incense smoke like a figure conjured from it.
She’s so small she doesn’t reach Riven’s sternum, but that’s not what arrests me.
I’ve never seen a fae with so much as a sign of age.
They can reach a thousand years, but most still look young.
This woman looks as if she’s in her sixties. I wonder how old she truly is.
Her slate-gray eyes slide over me from head to toe. Neither her expression nor her tone is flattering when she finally says, “So this is the girl the Dark Lord wants me to take in. The last silver elf.” She doesn’t say it to me so much as to Riven, as if I were air.
“High Priestess Beeatrisa. I don’t like her,” Aris grumbles. “Never have. A hellish spitfire.”
As if she’s heard him, her gaze snaps to him, and her eyes narrow further. Aris bares his teeth in response.
I squeeze him hard. “Remember: nice and cuddly, Aris.”
“What is this?” Her lips pout in obvious disgust. “No pets in my temple and in my university.”
“His name is Aris,” I answer before Riven can, my tone sharper than it should be, but diplomacy be damned when she insults Aris. “And he’s no pet—he’s a demon. A sentient one.”
“I thought you said nice and cuddly,” Aris rumbles, but not unhappily.
“Yeah, but she just insulted you.”
Beeatrisa’s eyebrows shoot up. “Sentient? He almost drools on the meadow,” she tsks.
Aris and I growl in unison. She takes a step back, but at least she doesn’t press further. “Put him on a leash, girl.”
“He’s not a pet and, hells, he doesn’t need a leash.
He probably knows more than fifty of your best students combined,” I snap, anger rising in a wave.
Power hums in my veins, ready to surge, and it takes everything I have to lock it back down.
Her eyes widen for a split second, as if she can feel the unholy power crawling beneath my skin, before they settle on my unpointed ears.
“I am to be addressed as High Priestess,” she states. “For those unfamiliar with the customs of this place. And now, leash him, or I’ll have him removed by the guards.”
“And he is to be addressed as Aris, High Priestess,” I counter, unperturbed. “And he will probably eat your guards if they so much as lay a finger on him.”
“I know why I chose you,” Aris says mind to mind.
“Is that a threat?” The woman crosses her arms defiantly.
“No, a statement,” I counter coolly.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Aris angling his head to look at me. I ignore him, holding the high priestess’s stare. Pride and amusement seep through my mental shields.
“Insolent brat.” She points a finger at me.
Riven’s face hardens. This meeting isn’t going the way he wanted.
The night suddenly darkens. It takes me a moment to find the reason. The fire in the lamps has changed to black flames, and Riven stands next to me, fangs bared, his face hewn into ice-cold fury.
I steel myself for the worst, but he surprises me by directing his anger at the woman. “Careful how you speak to her, priestess.”
Beeatrisa straightens involuntarily, her gaze darting between him and me. “Interesting how the Dark Lord’s right hand defends a half-blood,” she says finally.
“She is subject of the court of the two moons. You are to treat her with the according respect.”
“A former slave, I’ve heard,” she counters, her gaze falling back on me with outright disgust.
A growl works up from Riven’s throat, much more impressive than mine. “That knowledge better stay behind locked doors.”
The priestess glances at Aris, then looks at Riven as if I’m no longer worth her time. “I said no. Whatever he is, no pets or demons on my campus.”
Riven casually puts his hands in his pockets as if he has no care in the world, but shadows curl around his shoulders.
His amethyst eyes lie on Beeatrisa, defying the night.
“May I remind you, High Priestess, that it was Queen Daphina herself who granted that Melody can stay,” he purrs so softly he could be her lover.
But I hear the unmistakable warning under his polite facade.
Beeatrisa’s eyebrows shoot up before her eyes narrow again. “The queen may have granted her permission to be here, but not a demon. You heard my word, Lord of Nightfire and Ruin,” she says sharply and turns on her heel, her pale gray robes swirling.
Riven simply looks down at his nails. “Not many deem it wise to deny the Dark Lord,” he says quietly.
The high priestess stops dead in her tracks. Her face is expressionless when she looks back at us, but there’s a tinge of fear in the air—her hunched shoulders give it away. Her aura tells me she is suddenly…terrified.
So she fears Caryan. I store that information away.
“This kingdom is not under his jurisdiction, no matter how many of its population he has turned into blood-sucking creatures bound to his will if he orders them to be,” she seethes, pale eyes glowering up at Riven.
“I won’t teach them if they can’t control themselves.
The same goes for a half-mortal girl who can’t control her mouth and her overgrown lapdog.
Take this insolent brat away and put her in her place! ”
Riven’s eyes simmer with a promise of violence—a face I rarely see.
One moment, he looks like an elven prince; the next, the predator peeks out from beneath.
Caryan’s right hand and the most dangerous man after Caryan himself.
The man who killed thousands on battlefields.
I’ve heard the stories whispered in Caryan’s court.
This is not the man I knew, though. It’s scary to see him like this. “Lord of Nightfire and Ruin,” Beeatrisa called him—clearly a reference to his dark magic.
It occurs to me then, and I ask Aris, “Wait. Before, you said the university teaches elemental magic. But what is Riven’s magic? Fire?”
He hesitates. “Riven, as you know, is a half-blood like you. His magic is a unique combination of the demonic magic that the Nefarians wield and the magic of a very powerful high elf.”
“So—nightfire, as Beeatrisa called it, is uncommon?”
“The more common term is shadowfire. But no, not uncommon. It was unheard of until he came along,” Aris confirms.
“And what is so special about it? Shadowfire or nightfire?”
Riven indirectly answers for me. I stare as black flames spring from him, licking over his shoulders and arms without burning him, slowly creeping toward the temple and along its walls. Its actual walls.
“You will never, ever again speak about her like that, do you hear me, Beeatrisa? Or I will burn your temple down.”
“It burns even stone,” Aris mumbles darkly in my mind as we both stare at the flames eating the stone.
Beeatrisa looks torn between panic and rage.
“You would not dare! Caryan himself was healed here! I’m sure he hasn’t given you permission to make threats like these!
So take this girl or I will have the guards take her,” she seethes, teeth bared, while the flames continue to curl up the huge temple and its white dome becomes alive with black fire.
“If anyone touches her, I’m not only going to burn your temple to ash but lay waste to everyone inside too. Superfluous to say the same goes for any guard showing up. A pity to send them to death tonight, Beeatrisa.”