The first thing that struck me when I woke up was that I don't know where I am. I open my eyes to the unfamiliar brown ceiling, closed square window, and piled up chests in the corner of the room. I jolt upright with a scream stuck in my throat, scrambling to get up before everything comes rushing to me.
Oh, yeah. Right. I'm with the rebels, particularly in Jossie's quarters.
I turn to my side, expecting her to be there and watching me with disappointment like she did last night, but her bed is made up and empty. Releasing a breath of relief, I lie back down on my cot.
I can't believe I'm here with an actual purpose, after all the things that happened. After thinking for the past days that I would die.
Brief flashes of the carriage accident makes my heart const
Panic washes over my body like a splash of cold water. The stick of dynamite in my hand is getting warmer and warmer, only being intensified under the glare of the sun. In a rush, I stand and close the door, trying to keep the explosive from falling off my shaking hand. I put it back in its crate, my chest constricting with a mix of relief and increasing fear. "Fuck," I mumble, a profanity that I heard by never said, perfectly fitting for the situation. All of these crates around me are filled with dynamite. There has to be at least twenty crates in here, probably containing fifty sticks each. My stomach turns as I sigh and accidentally get a lungful of the dynamite smell. I want to leave right now, from this carriage and from this circus, but I don't know how. My knees are shaking and I feel so sick that the room is spinning before my eyes. What do these psychopaths want to do with this much explosives? What kind of circus—? Okay, the
I blink rapidly, waiting for the green scaly legs to turn normal. Maybe I’m just hallucinating, right? I rub my eyes for good measure as she begins to dry herself with a towel. When I stare at her legs again, they’re perfectly flesh-colored and ordinary. What’s happening to me? “Enemy, right.” I nod vigorously to hide my growing panic. My entire back is sweating. “Good thing I’m here as an ally.” Gynith smiles at me like she knows exactly what I think and it amuses her. “Welcome to Demika Circus, Lora.” “Thank you,” I croak after a pause. “It’s . . . nice to be welcomed after almost getting devoured by Shadow Wolves.” Gynith’s smile goes stiff. “By what?” “Shadow Wolves.” I point vaguely at the forest. “That’s how Alis
Running. They're running. From something or towards something, I don't know. Still, I want to find out, but there's this background hum of fear that's telling me to stay put until all the footsteps are gone. Either way, I can't move. I'm petrified in fear, and all I can do is sit here and listen as the heavy footsteps go away.There's complete silence now, apart from the rustling leaves being caressed by the wind. I hold my breath, waiting for a big sound, something that will shock me into moving, but nothing comes. The absence of sound is starting to creep towards me like a cold hand under the blankets. It's getting more and more intense, to the point that it's unbearable.I have to get out of here. Not just in Jossie's quarters, but this place entirely.I jump to my feet, my heart still racing inside my chest. I look around as my eyes start to adjust to the dark room, and immediately I find a discarded knife in a scabbard, thrown carelessly at the side
Jossie’s hands tighten around my head, her sharp fingernails digging into my scalp. My eyes begin to water in pain. She pulls my hair back and makes me look up at her, smiling as she goes. “Let me go!” I grab her wrists and try to pry her hand off my head. “I said let go!” “I don’t take orders from you,” she says blandly, pushing the top of my head until I lose balance and collapse on my knees. “You think we’re idiots? You think we won’t keep an eye on you after you act all suspicious? I knew you were up to something.” She drags me forward. My knees scrape on the ground, bumping against the small rocks protruding from the dried leaves. A sharp pain sears my kneecaps, combined with the immense pressure on my scalp as she uses my hair to steer me along the path towards the clearing. I can feel strands of my hair getting plucked, uprooted, and the pain and the sheer panic it’s giving me is almost too much to bear. But of course, it’s nothing compared to
My muscles seize up in fright, almost causing me to stumble on one of the roots protruding from the forest floor. Alistair is just standing as I stay rooted in my spot. He’s not so far behind me, but I’m pretty sure that I got a decent headstart from the clearing. I’m sure that yes, he could be much faster than I am, but something tells me that his advantage is not just speed. When he sees that I stopped, he takes a step forward. “Lora, don’t go any further!” I know it’s just a fair warning, but my brain immediately interprets it as a threat. My body reacts immediately and propels me to run again. At this point I don’t care what kind of monsters await me if I go further. Wolves, big or not, magical or not, I’d rather face than listen to Alistair and come back into his messed up group. My feet land hard on the ground with every step, some of the rocks causing a jolt of pain to jump from my soles to my entire legs. My breath is fogging up before me, but
I'm paralyzed, and for the first time in a long time, it's not out of fear. The world disappeared. All the trees in our surroundings, once blurred and hazy, are now melting right into each other like a soaked fresh painting. All I can see is his face, particularly his eyes. The specks of dark gray surrounding his pupils, the curve of his thick lashes, the unreadable emotion in them, and the sense of familiarity that it’s igniting from me. I feel hot and cold at the same time, blushing and shivering as his hands slowly trace the upward curve of my spine. Parting my lips for him is like a release and a buildup, an attack and a surrender, bliss and torture. Polar opposites, swirling inside me to get locked into this eternal dance that’s as old as time itself. All of this—the crash and burn of the opposites—spiral down into one single second, a fleeting moment when I stand on the tips of my toes and reach his lips with mine. But Alistair pulls away at the
The sheer shock of feeling the cold blade dig into my skin is enough to make me gasp, but it’s nothing compared to the pain that attacks my senses the moment it sinks into my arm. As rough as I can, I push away Jossie, who stumbles back and watches me with a slight smile on her lips. I want nothing more than to kick her teeth in, but I have immediate problems. My brain is panicking. I clutch my bleeding arm, watching my thick, crimson blood seep through my fingers. Oh, I’m going to pass out. I don’t want to look at my own blood but I can’t avert my gaze out of horror. Why the hell is no one bothered that some crazy bitch stabbed me? I turn to Alistair to yell at him, but he’s already pushing past Jossie to get to me. I thought he’ll just sweet-talk me into believing that all of this is normal, but to my surprise, he snatches the knife from her. Then he runs the blade on his arm, the same exact spot as mine. “Alistair,” I begin to say,
I wake with a gasp. The shock of hearing Father’s voice, even in a dream, after so many days is making my heart pump so fast in my chest that I’m losing breath. My hands are clenched around the sheets, so tightly that my fingers have gone numb. What the hell was all that? I sit up, not wanting to move my head too abruptly in fear of losing the images I can remember from the dream. Sadly, it’s disappearing from my mind like a handful of sand cascading through my parted fingers. All I can remember is Father hurting my mom, who’s pushing a basket onto the pond under the full moon. . . . “Hey, you okay?” The sudden question makes me jolt. I forgot that I’m not alone here. I wheel around to see Gynith in the corner, tying her hair into a ponytail in front of the mirror. “You okay?” she repeats, her lips curling into a smile. “You should have seen the way you woke up. You looked like a zombie, just sitting up so stiffly like that.” “
⇼ E L O R A ⇼ Days passed. Then weeks. Before I knew it, a whole month had passed, and when I woke up earlier with this realization, I just felt like a gigantic weight had been lifted off my chest. Life goes on, I realize. No matter how bad the situations were, my life still went on. And so did the lives of the others. The past month proved that. I open my eyes and look at the ceiling of the guest room, which we have designated among ourselves due to the renovation and the reconstruction that we’re doing for the palace. Some of the people from other city-states are going in and out of the Capital to help, also to take part in the planning process of our biggest project ever: tearing down the walls from the palace and the Capital. From outside the window of the room I share with Alistair, I can already see the shrine of the heroes in the courtyard. It’s a ten feet tall marble obelisk with all the names of the fallen. I didn’t include
⇼ E L O R A ⇼A scream builds up in my throat and escapes my mouth, ringing inside the chapel and out into the forest.With my entire body shaking, I scramble out of the dark building, my skin still covered in goosebumps. I slip and slide against the marble floor and almost fall more than three times, but I don’t care. All I want is to put as much space between me and the monstrosity that is my uncle’s dead body, which was missing just hours ago.How did it get there? What is it doing there? Why did it look at me? Why am I here? How did I get here?These questions all swirl in my head like a deadly mix, making me whimper all the way back around the lakeside. Small stones are digging into my soles and I’m just slipping everywhere, but I keep going like a wild prey getting away from its predator. No matter how many times I blink, I can’t get rid of the picture in my head, the picture of Uncle Osman’s glassy eyes staring at me.My feet keep sinking in
⇼ E L O R A ⇼I want to scream, but no sound escapes me. It’s as though my voice completely vanished, and now I’m left here staring at my dead uncle as he grabs my arm and forces me to walk with him.And the weird thing is, I can actually feel his hand clasping my ruined wrist. It’s almost as though he’s more solid than anything in here, more solid than me. It’s like I’m a dream but he’s in a higher form of reality that conquers mine. This notion only gets stronger when I try to struggle but he just doesn’t budge. He’s solid. He’s stronger than me.“Why do you want to leave so bad?” he asks me, his voice as gentle and as good-natured as I remember. He points at the chapel with his other hand, and as if on cue, the lights from inside glow brighter. I can actually see silhouettes of people from the windows, and they’re not moving. They’re all just standing there, completely still.
⇼ A L I S T A I R ⇼“No,” I hear Elora whisper, and my heart just cracks for her. She sounds so broken and so lost that I forget just how confused and afraid I am. I go up to her side and put a hand on her shoulder, and she wheels around to face me. “Are you sure this is the place?”“Yes,” I say, my voice low. I point at the smear of blood scattered along the massive elevated platform in the middle of the circular room. “Kalem said that they gathered the remains of the King’s brother and put him in the catacombs behind the chapel, in the room at the end of the tunnel.”Even though I remember what Kalem said perfectly, I still look around just to make sure we are indeed in the right place. There’s no other room in the catacombs, just these hallways with cubby holes on the walls, each containing either porcelain jars or wooden boxes with peeling gold paint. Apart from the blood on the slab of rock, there
⇼ E L O R A ⇼Coldness creeps into my body, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. Madam Mara’s eyes are filled with nothing but pure and cold fear, the kind that will petrify you on the spot. For a vague moment I wonder what she actually knew, what she has seen and heard that still makes her shake like this even though Uncle Osman is already dead.But when she said he’s not human . . . I felt that was true.It was in the way he fought Alistair and I. We’re both Supernaturals, and I know we’re not used to fighting, but we should have been able to overpower him in a second, no sweat. But no. He was prepared. He was resilient. He was fighting back. And at some point he was even winning. It really wasn’t normal, and I was definitely thinking about it, but I don’t think I truly considered the possibility of it until Madam Mara came to me.And now she’s staring at me intensely like she’s going to explode
⇼ A L I S T A I R ⇼The sheer shock that thundered inside my body is enough to make time seem to slow down. I watch numbly as the Queen’s hand, still clasping the fork, draws closer and closer to her swollen belly. . . .I sweep closer, landing on my knees in front of the prison cell. I slide my hand through the metal bars just in time to move my hand right between the fork and her pregnant belly. She ends up stabbing my hand with enough force to let the tines sink into my palm with an abrupt squelching sound.The pain makes me gasp, but I take this accident as an opportunity to grab the fork and take it away from her.With my hand dripping blood, I turn to Jossie and Kalem, who are both horrified at the scene. “Do you have the key? Let’s take her—”“NO!” Queen Zuri shrieks, ramming against the metal bars. “It’s evil! Evil, I tell you! Get me out of here, please . . . I am begging you. Just take
⇼ A L I S T A I R ⇼The way to the prison cells of the palace is steep, dark, and incredibly eerie. Jossie and Kalem are right beside me as we walk along the narrow hallways leading down, but I feel alone. I feel cold. It’s as though this part of the palace is full of invisible hands, slowly pulling me under a pool of freezing water.After my talk with Elora, Jossie found me and informed me that I must oversee what’s being done to the new prisoners.“We need to know how we’re going to do all these things and just . . . make a process,” she said, her confusion very apparent on her face. “I honestly don’t know what we’re going to do with all these people, Alistair. I don’t know if we can trust them to be here when there are still soldiers around. Even the soldiers of their own city-state are here too.”“I understand, and don’t worry, I will find a way,” I told her then, pretty con
⇼ A L I S T A I R ⇼The Queen holds out her arms for me to bind them, but I’m empty handed apart from the cannon I stole from a guard just moments ago. I look at Elora, and she cuts off a strip from the hem of her shirt and ties it around the Queen’s wrists before pulling her up to her feet.Around us, the handmaidens all get to their knees, touching the ground with their foreheads as they face us. For a brief second I have to wonder what they are doing exactly, but then it occurs to me that this is their sign of surrender. They are changing their allegiance. They are showing that they are now ready to serve us since we basically dethroned the Queen and invaded the whole palace.To be frank, I don’t know how to feel about all of this. I want to tell them that it’s alright, that they don’t need to bow, but I can’t find the right words to say.Would it even be alright to show some kind of consideration or sympathy after I
⇼ A L I S T A I R ⇼ The path down has absolutely no amount of illumination, not even the tiniest one. The light from the throne room isn’t sneaking into the hole, which makes me think that it’s nothing but a black hole gaping at the floor of the dais, with nothing inside it. But Elora is just making her way down as though this isn’t a problem. I want to stop her and ask if she is certain, but the determination on her face and her slow deliberate movements are the answer for me. I peek down and notice that she’s holding onto metal bars and not just floating down, but this does very little to assure me. The darkness reminds me of shadows. And shadows remind me of my magic. The magic that killed those innocent guards. The magic that poisoned them to death, blackened their veins, and mangled their bodies. . . . “Are you going to follow me or not?” Elora’s voice, thin and fragile and barely audible, snaps me out of my reverie. I quickly nod