I’m just looking at the river again, fawning at the way the water appears to flow so freely between the chapped plains, when I notice Kaan put a little pressure on the left tug-rope.
Rygun’s right wing begins to rise.
Anticipating the canting motion, I grip the strap and lean into the sway, finding the movement almost … natural, this time managing to keep my seat between Kaan’s powerful thighs.
The sun now beats upon the right side of our bodies, warming my cloak as we’re carried toward a lofty band of auburn mountains stretched far and wide, north to south, emerging from the distant haze of dust torn up by the wind.
“Where are we going?”
“There,” Kaan says, pointing toward a distinct dip in the mammoth range, which expands a little more with each thud-ump of Rygun’s wings.
Scorched earth gives way to lush, russet jungle, the likes of which I’ve only seen in paintings on shop walls in Gore, the heavily vegetated mountains before us so large and vast they make Rygun feel like a pinprick in comparison.
The only ranges I’ve ever seen have been sheer and sharp, but these are the opposite. Like somebody ladled scoops of stone, then dumped them on each other in big mounded heaps, clouds beginning to gather around their heads like puffs of gray hair.
Rygun banks, aiming for a crevice, its soaring, jagged edges severed by the rushing river far below.
“Hold on,” Kaan growls, gathering both tug-ropes in one hand, threading the other arm around my waist. My spine stiffens as he tips his body forward, forcing me to do the same—wedging me between himself and the hard-packed saddle, pitching my pulse into a bellowing roar.
“Why are you not steering?”
“Because he knows where to go,” Kaan says upon the left side of my hood.
Huh?
A tightening of his dense body is the only warning I get before we pitch sideways, the motion so rapid my innards corkscrew the opposite direction. They finally manage to catch up, though just as they do, Rygun tips the other way. Back again, and again, and again, skimming past sheer, rust-colored cliffs the river appears to have worn its path between, like it’s reaching for something deep. Perhaps the other side.
Perhaps if it gets there, the world will split in two.
Another tip, Kaan’s inhale crushing his body so close to mine that I feel him everywhere. The way he flexes as he prepares for the next maneuver. The way his arm tightens around my waist, muscles bulging, clinging to me like I’m going to somehow slip free and plunge to my doom.
Rygun battles the gorge with such precision I realize he’s done this many times—tucking his wings when the pathway becomes narrow, dropping momentarily before throwing them out again.
We come to a dead end, water pouring down the rounded mountainscape above in wide, gushing steps, gathering in a large basin at its foot. The teal pool glimmers like a gemstone beneath diagonal beams of sun, the northern side cast in a deep pocket of eternal shade.
Rygun swoops almost low enough to drag his tail through the water, scooping skyward—Kaan’s tensing body and my firm grip on the strap the only things stopping me from ripping off the saddle, skimming down the length of the beast and plummeting into the pool.
A smattering of water pelts my cloak as we shoot up, then level so fast a yelp slips up my throat. Rygun thrashes his wings, lowering us gently … then all at once. We thud upon the ground so hard my canine pierces my bottom lip.
The taste of copper fills my mouth.
Kaan pulls back, ripping me with him. He flips the hood, tilting my head until I’m staring straight up at the underside of his scruff-covered chin.
He clicks his tongue, the rough pad of his thumb dragging across my bottom lip with such tenderness every muscle in my body poises for a few rigid moments before my brain has a chance to recalibrate.
Tyrant King.
My captor.
Shoved his finger in my wound.
Snarling, I bat his hand away and push to a wobbly stand, the insides of my thighs so chafed and achy I immediately buckle.
He catches me, making a deep rumbling sound as he flips me over with effortless ease and lumps me on his back, drawing a dense oomph from my tormented abdomen now folded over his stone-hard shoulder.
Being treated like a sack of grain is getting very old, very quickly.
“Your hips are sharp,” he grumbles, and I bash my fists against his back, knowing there’s next to no point.
Doing it anyway.
“I’ll show you something sharp.”
“Every word that comes out of your mouth is sharp, Moonbeam.” He one-handedly unbuckles one of his saddlebags and tosses it over his other shoulder. “I’m half dead already, bleeding out at your feet. Can’t you see?”
I scoff.
Please.
Kicking up his leg, he eases down Rygun’s ropes, my hood flopping so far over my head I can’t see anything but Kaan’s brown tunic stretched over his tensing back muscles. He leaps the last few feet to the ground, then he’s stalking away from the sound of Rygun’s deep, resonating breaths, his booted footsteps softened by something I’m unable to see because of this Creators-damn cloak.
He moves down some steps, dumps the bag, and flips me off his shoulder. My feet land on the ground, though I have barely a moment to gather myself before the cloak is unpinned from around my throat and whipped away.
“What are you—”
He grips me around the waist, lifts me, and tosses me through the air.
For two tight moments, I picture myself plummeting down a crevice and straight into the den of a velvet trogg, about to be bound in slimy tendrils of excretion pulled from the gaping wounds in its palms. For two tight moments, until I dunk into a body of cool, crisp water.
I scramble, kicking and thrashing, certain I’m about to be consumed by some waterborne creature that no doubt likes the taste of fae flesh, until I stretch my legs down and plant them on a … pebbled ground.
Oh.
Shoving up, I push my head above the water and gasp for breath, just in time to see a bar of soap spearing at my head. I dodge it, then scramble to scoop it out of the water and throw it back the way it came—the bar thudding against Kaan’s chest, leaving a soapy smear on his tunic.
“You smell bad. Soap fixes that,” he says, picking it up and tossing it back at me.
Splashing me in the face.
I snatch it, pelting it at his crotch. “You need it more than I do!”
“I’ve got my own fucking soap,” he growls, catching it just before it can make obliterating contact with his cock.
Oh.
Failing to muster any more words to wield, I poke my tongue out at him instead. He returns the gesture, and the corner of my mouth threatens to lift.
The King just stuck his tongue out at me.
Muttering beneath his breath, he tosses the soap again and spins, kicks off his boots, then uses one arm to reach down and pull his tunic up over his head.
My heart skips a beat, mouth popping open.
The scars on his arms extend across every visible inch of his broad, muscular back, covered in so many small sable dots of ink that it appears almost entirely blacked out. And upon the dusky expanse … a constellation of white stars and beautiful bouldered moons. Almost two dozen of them—both near and far. Most the size of an eye, though a few are the size of my fist.
But they’re not just any moons.
My breath hitches as I take in the small wonky one I love so much, sketched so exquisitely I can make out its misshapen wing.
Something inside me stills as the backs of my eyes prickle, certain I’m staring out my window back at home, looking upon the glorious sight.
One I never thought I’d see again.
I almost reach out and touch it. Almost trace the dips and peaks of its visible wing, the delicate swoop of its long neck, and the silken tendrils that hang off its jowls and around the back of its head.
I’m so caught up in the trance that it takes me too long to notice the other moons upon the darkened expanse—ones I also recognize. Ones that crowd my favorite little moon in real life, like Kaan sat beneath that patch of sky while somebody mimicked the view with an inked etching stick.