1
EVA
You won’t make it. You’re going to be too late.
The voices in my head continued to torment and taunt me as I raced through the gilded halls of the palace. My home. I slipped around the corner of a corridor, chancing a glance briefly at the sentries standing guard by an archway. They reached out for me, tried to stop me, but their shouts fell on deaf ears; I didn’t have time to stop and explain. I was racing against an invisible clock, counting down the seconds until my life was altered. Changed so irrevocably, I didn’t know how I would move on.
Their footsteps echoed off of the stone walls behind me. My heart was racing, aching as I pushed myself further, harder than I ever had before. Decades of training should have prepared me for this type of situation, but I was royally fucked. No amount of killing or training could prepare me for this. The cost of my failure would be far too great if I didn’t make it in time. Dark corridors seemed to stretch on indefinitely, drifting into a never-ending time loop.
The screams of my people rang off the palace walls. Pure, unbridled chaos from the world outside these walls continued to reign around me. Helia was under attack. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it from happening. They were here, The Horde, and they delighted in the torturing of my people. I was a simple fool to believe we could’ve stopped this from happening. My heart seemed to fracture. One particular scream sounded out above the rest into the chilly night air, the only one that mattered in this moment.
No. No. No.
My head was pounding, aching as my magic coiled underneath the surface of my skin. It begged to be set free, physically hurting me to keep it restrained. But I required every single last drop to do what I needed to do.
The door to the throne room came into view as I rounded the last corner. The golden archway contorting into tight vines above the entry. I kicked open the doors, my breathing erratic as I took in the scene in front of me. My mother lay in the middle of the room. Her body broken and battered, but her face masked in a steely defiance. She was beautiful, even as she lay before me. A masked assailant was the only force holding her body up, one hand solidly gripping her hair. My eyes frantically searched my mother’s, instantly realizing my worst fears were coming to fruition. She had accepted her fate. I was too late. She lifted her neck, meeting my gaze, and I nearly gasped. Her eyes were blazing, two beacons calling to me on the darkest of nights. They held within them the promise to guideandhaunt me until the end of my days.
“I love you, sweet girl. Never stop fighting,” she whispered to me, right as a blade plunged into her chest and pierced her heart.
I woke up with a start. My scream echoing through the chill evening air, ringing back to me off the walls of my bedroom. I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes, regardless of how much I wanted to. All I could see was the image of my mother’s dying body, forever burned into the deepest pits of my mind. A nightmare that played on repeat nearly every damn night.
Not real, it’s not real.At least… not anymore.
I tried to steady my breathing, inhaling through my nose and out of my mouth, but it didn’t stop the pure panic that was steadily rising inside of me. Warm hands wrapped around my arms, the scent of an ocean breeze washing over me.
“Eva! Eva, look at me. Open your eyes!” But I didn’t want to. Icouldn’t. I was held in some sort of trance with my mother’s last words ringing in my ears. The nightmare had taken ahold of me, consumed me in a way that hadn’t happened in so long. It felt so real, but it also felt…different. More like a warning.
Whoever grabbed ahold of my arms shook me, dominant and demanding. “Dammit Eva, please,” the voice growled. There was something laced within the voice that tugged at my soul, the pleading nature of it that made me want to obey. A calloused hand caressed my face, scraping the rough pad of a thumb across my cheekbones. The fight within me was gone. I needed the comforting touch this person offered to provide, so I leaned into it. Embracing the touch completely.
In my mind, I counted:One, two, three.
As a final shaky breath escaped my body, I opened my eyes. There wasn’t time to think, let alone process what was happening, before a hand snaked through my hair and a body crashed against mine.
“Are you alright? What happened?”
It was a nightmare; always the same one that forced me to relive the worst night of my life. A memory that would forever haunt me, regardless of the time that passed. Hell, it’d already been damn near 100 years since that night, and yet it remained. Clear as fucking day. I’d been powerless to stop it, even though I held more power in my veins than most people ever dreamed of possessing.Everythingabout me was power incarnate.
I was considered an elemental - a type of Fae that held an extremely rare connection with and control over fire, earth, wind, and water. Most of us had either been phased out by centuries of breeding, causing family lines to become weak and diluted. Or we were hunted and killed. Regardless, there weren’t many of us left. The fact I was an elemental came as a massive shock. Even considered a blessing from the gods, seeing as neither of my parents held the gift. Though they were powerful in their own right.
“Eva, look at me.” The voice brought me back as I was reminded of the presence currently crushing my body against their own.Damien. My eyes scanned along the ripples of a taut male torso, etched into perfectly glowing olive skin. Deep-set eyes as blue as the ocean stared back at me under thick lashes, into the depths of my soul. My breathing hitched as he closed his eyes, just for a moment, sighing with relief that I was okay. His light brown curly hair seemed darker in the dim moonlight and fell into his eyes. It was unruly, always had been since we were children, but I’d always found the way it was so perfectly imperfect to be endearing. Though tonight, he almost seemed disheveled, as if he had broken down the door to save me.
“I’m fine,” I responded, waving him off. Weak and lying; that’s what Ireallywas. There weren’t many days the word ‘fine’ was ever an accurate representation of what I was feeling. I didn’t have an option to be anything else, though. I was the heir to a kingdom. I wasn’t allowed to have bad days. “I’m fine.”
The man rocked back on his heels as he scanned my face and then my body, checking to make sure that I was indeed unharmed. My body came alive under his gaze. The flames underneath my skin, begging to consume me.
“You’re not fine. I know you better than that,” he hesitated. “Did you dream about… about the night your mother…”
I froze. A beat of tension filled the air. “Don’t. Don’t you dare finish that sentence. I said I was fine, and I fucking meant it, Damien.”
Push me on this, tell me I’m wrong. I was ready and primed for a fight I knew wouldn’t come. He wouldn’t push me. He’s too moral and good. Hell, he’s the best person I know. That’s saying a lot, seeing as I’ve lived for well over three hundred years.
I pulled myself out of bed and walked to the open balcony located directly off of my bedroom. It was unseasonably cold, given the time of year. Spring was a cataclysmic season, tasked with bringing the warmth back to our lands after a suspiciously harsh winter. I hesitated for only a moment, my body reacting to the cold air that seeped through my thin nightdress. The cold sensation traveling lightly along my skin, caressing me like an old friend. It’d be effortless to heat my body with the power within, but I wanted to feel the keen sting of the cold. I deserved a harsher punishment than this, anyway.
And how dare he bring up my mother? The one person who knows exactly what I went through, what I continue to go through, with each passing day. He must have had a death wish, and I wasalmostwilling to oblige him on his request.
My hands reached out in front of me as I leaned against the railing of the balcony, staring out into the dark oblivion before me. The faint outline of Helia, my home and my kingdom, glistened against the night sky as far as I could see. If anyone else took a glimpse below at the capital city, they would think it was asleep, but I knew better. No one ever slept, not really. It’s why we were the strongest kingdom in Aethion. It takes a damn miracle to keep this place running day by day. From bakers to soldiers to little kids on the street, everyone had a part to play. In every town, every village, every major city. Our palace set on the edge of the capital, with a courtyard that connected the two. My rooms were high enough that you could barely see the people in the streets, but if you looked hard enough, they were there. Working harder than half the people I knew in the royal courts. I owed everything to them. My entire family did. Without them? There would be no land to rule, no people to govern. This is the land that my mother died to protect, that I was set to inherit even though I was unworthy. A tear formed and threatened to fall, but I brushed it away before it stood a chance.
Tentative steps fell against the marble flooring leading from my bedroom as Damien slid up to the railing beside me. Neither of us spoke for a moment, wrapped in a comfortable bubble of silence. Sometimes being in his company was easy, and this was one of those rare moments I was thankful it was him that broke down the door and not someone else. Anyone else would have left me alone, and that’s the thing… No matter what I might say, I didn’t want to be alone. No one wanted that.
