The Two Worlds: The Three Moon Series

by Winter, Eden

  Adam was becoming heated as well. He swallowed and closed his eyes in order to calm himself down.

  “And you believe all of this based on letters. The one thing that you are sure of is that a portal to my world exists,” Veri said. But she was truly worried now. It meant that Adam was no mastermind. He was a pawn in all of this. There were more in this world who knew they were incubi and succubi, and now they knew how to travel into their world.

  Veri’s heart stopped cold. And those who were true incubi would be able to spot another creature in their midst. They would be able to spot a vampire.

  Mark.

  Veri said nothing about him, but now she understood. He knew that she wasn’t human.

  “I want to do what’s best for my people, just like you want to.”

  “I need to get out of this world, Adam. I need to go back now.”

  Adam looked at Veri for a long time. He couldn’t bring her any headaches or project any memories onto her. The only thing that he could do now was to let her go. The most she could do was try to talk to Kainen, but Kainen already loved him. The whole thing would seem absurd. And no one in her world would be convinced that there were incubi and succubi roaming around in an entirely different plane of existence.

  “I can’t just leave my own opening. You may not have anything at stake in this world, but I do.”

  “I don’t care. You are not leaving my sight, but I refuse to stay in this world beyond this evening,” Veri said. She had never been more serious about anything. She wasn’t sure what would happen if he ran away or if he wasn’t able to open the portal again.

  “You have until the end of the night. And if you try to run away…” Veri said. She walked a step closer to Adam and made sure that their faces were almost touching.

  “…I’ll make sure that you never see Kainen or anyone that you love again.”

  Chapter Eight

  The King and The Queen’s Sister

  It had taken some time, some effort, and a cane, but Kainen had finally gotten down from his bedroom. Siluman offered to carry him. One look from Kainen told Siluman that that was the worst thing to ask a proud king. This was the first time that Kainen was able to even move for a long period of time without collapsing and falling into a deep sleep. Siluman, Dende, and Guiden descended the stairs with the king. They didn’t want to treat him like an invalid, but they wanted to ensure that he walked rather than tumbled down.

  Dende said that they had locked Upír in a dungeon close to the outskirts of the main tower. Upír had been pleading with them to take her to the king, but it was a strange encounter. The vampires had never come this far north before. Upír riding alone was either a trap or something was truly wrong.

  The king had almost been killed once, and Dende knew that it had something to do with Queen Veri’s influence on the wraiths by the sea. There was no way on earth Dende was going to allow a vampire to come into their kingdom and meet with the king alone. She told Upír that she would meet with the king when he was ready, and only if it was something that he wanted.

  So, this is where they were now. They had just reached the door of the dungeon where the king’s general, Yleinen, was waiting for them.

  “Has she said anything?” Kainen asked.

  “She will only speak with you, your Majesty,” Yleinen said. He was smiling wide in spite of the circumstance. It felt good to see the king on his feet again. Yleinen had taken charge in his stead and had kept the people in the kingdom informed about the king’s recovery.

  What it was that Upír wanted, Yleinen did not know, but he would do whatever the king asked of him.

  Yleinen stepped to the side and opened the door of the dungeon. Upír was seated on a bench in the corner of the room. She was resting the side of her head against the wall but immediately became alert when the door swung open. She shot up from her seat, her curly blonde hair bouncing, and eyed the door. She wanted to know who was coming in and hoped that it was the king.

  Kainen stepped into the room. Dende, Siluman, Guiden, and Yleinen followed.

  Upír walked across the dirty ground and flung her arms around Kainen. Dende was on high alert and had already raised a dagger once she saw Upír moving toward them. Siluman and Yleinen were also prepared for a fight, but no one was prepared for an embrace. For some reason, that made Kainen laugh even though the hug nearly brought him to the floor. He wrapped his arms around Upír and returned the hug.

  “Hello, Upír,” Kainen said.

  “King Kainen,” Upír managed to sputter into the king’s shoulder. It was a good thing he was wearing a dark tunic because human blood was now escaping from Upír’s eyes. Vampires always cried the blood of their last victims.

  She finally pulled away and wiped her eyes.

  “You are well? I was told that you have been very ill,” Upír said.

  “Oh, like you didn’t know,” Dende said. She hadn’t put away her dagger, and she refused to take her eyes off of the vampire.

  “No, I had no idea.”

  “This was your sister’s doing,” Kainen said bitterly. He sounded more hurt than angry. “The vampires have an allegiance with the wraiths and seafolk. They were told they no longer needed to protect me, and so they felt that it meant they should kill me.”

  Dende’s suspicions had been confirmed. Queen Veri really had been responsible for all of this. She could have gotten the king killed. She could have gotten all of them killed, if not for the werewolves that had come to their rescue.

  “I am well now, thanks to Siluman and Dende. I hear they found you on their return home.”

  It upset Dende how calm Kainen was being.

  “What are you doing?” Dende sent a private thought over to Kainen. He smirked at that. He was definitely expecting a response like that from Dende. She was always the one who was suspicious of anyone or anything that she meant.

  “I do not have the time or strength to be angry. I do not want to incite war because the queen had been childish. I want to know why Upír is here without provoking anyone. I do not want to see any blood spilt today,” he responded to her.

  Dende was grateful that vampires were not like witches. The witches would have been able to hear the most private conversations that the elves were having amongst themselves. There was something about a witch that broke through the barrier of mental communication. Vampires were not the same.

  “Why are you here, Upír?” Kainen asked.

  “I am looking for my sister.”

  “She’s not in your kingdom?” Yleinen asked.

  “No. The sky has not changed since she left. Now, there are people in my court who will sooner kill me and my sister and take over the throne. I need her to come back and restore order,” Upír said.

  This was very strange. Queen Veri had no reason to leave her kingdom. Kainen didn’t expect her to lock herself away, but he certainly expected her to regain her bearings and rule her people like a noble queen.

  “Veri has been very sick also. She has been plagued with an illness that we do not understand. She has become weak and frail, and she has been losing some of her senses. I’ve never seen her in so much pain. She has convulsed and wept and fallen to the floor because of the pain that she is in. It all happened the day that you left our castle,” Upír continued.

  “Maybe it was an inexplicable way of balance being restored to the world, hurting your sister the way you hurt our king,” Dende hissed.

  “Enough, Lady Dende,” Siluman said. He took her by the arm and brought her toward him. She always had a way of becoming more at ease whenever she was in Siluman’s arms. She didn’t mean to be as harsh as she was, but she didn’t know any other way to react.

  “When the forest siren met her end, the witches could have turned us away. But they came to our rescue when they had all the reason not to,” Siluman pointed out. Dende relaxed her shoulders and nodded. He was right. Pyll, the forest siren, had actually been killed by them when she was only doing her duty of protecting
a portion of the woods. Upír had nothing to do with Kainen’s illness, and Kainen had lived through his ordeal. Upír was clearly distraught, and Dende’s cruel words would not be of help to anyone. She frowned at how childish and stubborn she was being, but she was still so hotheaded that she wasn’t going to admit she was wrong or apologize for her actions.

  “Do you know where your sister has gone?” Kainen asked when the commotion had subsided. Upír shook her head even before he finished the question.

  “There is only one thing that I know,” she said.

  “And what is that?” Yleinen spoke up.

  “That it has something to do with the human man.”

  *****

  Dende had protested and pleaded and cursed, but Kainen was not going to change his mind. Once he heard Upír speaking about Adam, the more things made sense to him. Adam was away, and so was Veri, because they were probably meeting in private. But what on earth for?

  “I know where to look,” he had said. Dende immediately sprang into action. She was going to her home to pack her things to go on the journey.

  “You have done so much already, Dende. Rest,” Kainen had told her. She had come up with so many excuses as to why it was that the king needed her. He knew that she was his best warrior and one of his most loyal friends, but Dende would soon succumb to exhaustion if she didn’t take a moment to catch her breath and to rest. Kainen, not being completely oblivious, asked Siluman to keep an eye on her. Siluman, of course, agreed to this. He tried not to scold Dende. She was always trying to help others but did not consider herself in some of the circumstances. Guiden assured the king that he would also keep an eye on stubborn Dende.

  Upír didn’t need to argue. She shot her dark red eyes at the king and informed him that she would need her horse and her saddle immediately. Yleinen offered to accompany the king in case this was a trap. Upír had no reason to trick or trap them. She came without even realizing that the king had been dying. If she was sent to kill him, there were less elaborate ways to go about it. It was too obvious anyway. If Upír killed Kainen, there would be no doubt that a war was going to be waged with the vampires living in the south of this realm.

  The three of them left the confines of the elven kingdom and descended the steep mountain. Kainen and Yleinen had traversed this mountain more times than they could count and could very easily go on this journey on their horses. Upír had never traveled down something so steep before, and it was different because her horse actually had legs. She didn’t want to risk her life on this journey. She sat in front of Kainen, and Yleinen had tied her horse to his.

  “Your majesty, where are we going?” Yleinen asked.

  Kainen thought of the most secret place that he knew. It was where he and Veri would meet during their fleeting affair. It was a place that no one else knew of. It was a clearing tucked between the mountains, the volcano, and the woods. Kainen had taken Adam there as well. If there was anywhere for the two of them to meet, then there was a big chance that that was where they were. It was a secluded place that wasn’t easy to get to, and it was far enough away from other life that they knew there was no way that they would be disturbed by anyone.

  Kainen sighed deeply when he thought of a place that once brought him joy.

  “I’m going to a very special place. I feel like it is a place that both Queen Veri and Adam may venture to in order to meet in private. But if I take you…” Kainen paused, “you have to promise not to show anyone.”

  *****

  With each forward motion of his horse, Kainen’s worry increased. His heart rate sped up, and he began to sweat. At least they were on flat ground, and Upír was finally on her own horse. Kainen recognized these parts of the land, but he knew that Yleinen didn’t.

  No one had ever strayed from the usual path and gone to this side of the mountain before, but Kainen remembered this place vividly. He hadn’t been here for a while, but he remembered the first time he went with Queen Veri.

  She was the one who found this place for them. It was the beginning of their secret love affair, and she had sent him coordinates after she had taken a drink of his blood. Vampires had the ability to briefly communicate with those whose blood they had drank. The two of them met shortly after, and it had become their secret space ever since.

  When he met and fell in love with Adam, it became their secret place. Kainen was beginning to feel guilty as he remembered what he had done to Veri. He had taken their sacred space and shared it with a human. Veri had never deserved the lies Kainen had told her. He wasn’t able to keep them up for very long, and when he came clean, that was when everything changed.

  Kainen couldn’t defend himself when it came to loving Adam. He just did. There was a shift inside of him when their eyes first met, and Kainen hadn’t felt the same since.

  Kainen, Upír, and Yleinen had started riding through the cave that was a long entranceway to the secret clearing. Yleinen rode behind the king and Upír, making sure that everything was safe for the king. In a foreign place, he had to prepare for anything.

  Very soon, the three of them reached the clearing.

  “Wow,” Upír found herself saying. She looked all around her. It was a bright and clear day. The grass was so lush and green around them. She could see the peak of one of the volcanoes from here. They were normally visible only from the mountains or a particular part of the woods. It was a beautiful place. It made sense that Veri would want to come to a place like this. Her sister enjoyed time to herself. It must have been difficult letting someone know about a special place for herself, especially with what had happened with Kainen and Adam.

  “Upír,” Kainen called to her. Upír had been riding around and taking a look at the trees and all the life that was around them.

  “Do you know what Veri wanted with Adam? How did she know him or where to look?” Kainen asked when Upír rode up beside him.

  “She didn’t say that she knew him. I thought she would have gone to your kingdom and found him there. But I had waited long enough. Her quest for Adam was not as important as what was happening in our own kingdom. There may be a civil war. She needs to return to lead.”

  “I understand how you’re feeling,” Kainen said. When he was ill, he didn’t know how to go about ruling, and it worried him more because he thought that the vampire queen was going to wage war on his people. He could see now that those had been threats only because Veri had been hurt by him.

  “And you’re certain that this would be where they were?” Yleinen asked the king. Kainen shook his head. He wasn’t sure at all. It was a hope and a guess. But as far as he could see, there was no one here.

  “We may have to search the nearby woods,” Yleinen said. He was the first off of his horse.

  They searched separately but near enough to one another that each was in the other’s sights. They still did not fully trust each other. Yleinen half expected an ambush, while King Kainen expected to find Veri or Adam—or both—dead somewhere in this field, and Upír was not sure what she was expecting, all she knew was that if it involved anything to do with her sister, she had to keep searching.

  “How far into the woods shall we go?” she asked.

  “Not too far. We have to stick together,” Yleinen said.

  “We will cover more ground if we separate,” Upír protested.

  “I don’t think that would be wise,” Kainen said. “If you go into the woods, we don’t know if there is someone from your kingdom waiting to ambush us, and if you are in the field alone, you could escape on your horse and take ours with you.”

  “You are wasting time. I have no one in this area; how could I? It was you who showed us this place. My sister could be dead, and you don’t care. How can you not care at all about her?” Upír had started crying again. Red tears flowed down her face, and she made no effort to wipe them away.

  “Why do you think I’m here, Upír?” Kainen said. Upír’s words stung him more than he cared to admit.

  “You are he
re because of your human.”

  “Yes, and I’m here because…” he looked around to see if Yleinen was close enough to hear. He wasn’t.

  “…and I’m here because I care about your sister a great deal. She… she saved me once. I am trying to make up for that time and save her. I will do my part if you do yours. I need to know that I can trust you.”

  “You can trust me, Kainen. The life of my sister is worth more to me than any petty feud you may be having with her. We haven’t much light left in the day,” Upír said. Kainen nodded in agreement. It was time for them to focus on the task at hand.

  If Kainen was wrong about this place, if neither Adam nor Veri were in the woods or out in the clearing, then he was at a loss for where they could be. He wasn’t even sure if they were together. They could be off doing very different things. Veri could have been searching for Adam or even searching for a cure for her own ailment. Adam, not bearing the sight of Kainen so ill, may have attempted to go through the woods to where the witches were. Dende and Siluman hadn’t seen him, but that didn’t mean that he had gone. He could have very well moved in from a different place in the forest to reach the witches. There were so many possibilities. But Kainen refused to give up hope, even though he was beginning to feel weak again. He may have overexerted himself on this quest. He tried not to let it show as they continued their search.

  “Your Majesty!” Yleinen suddenly called from a bit further into the woods. “Lady Upír! Come at once!”

  Kainen used the remainder of his strength to race into the forest. He nearly knocked Upír over. She had been running from the opposite direction. She may have been wearing a long robe, but she was still keeping up with Kainen’s long strides. Soon, they were holding hands and running as fast as they could through the trees toward the sound of Yleinen’s voice.

  Kainen stopped suddenly when he saw Yleinen. Upír gasped and placed her hands over her mouth.

  Tied to the tree next to Yleinen was Veri’s white horse.

  Chapter Nine