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13
BRAXTON
“Our parents were friends.” The glint of sadness entered her eyes as she spoke, but only wonder awoke in me.
“They knew each other?”
“Yes. Their lives weren’t easy. They endured a lot together as slaves of the Dark Empire, and that formed a bond between them. Everyone in their huddle looked out for each other if they could, sharing food when they weren’t given enough, secretly helping those who were punished, or taking Raithian’s vicious abuse themselves to protect the kids.”
My chest ached with the image forming in my mind. I couldn’t pretend to know what slavery was truly like. I was blessed to have grown up in a world where it had been abolished long ago, but we had thousands of history books and movies based on true events to help me visualize the conditions they endured, and that was enough to fill my soul with pain, anger, and a need for justice that overwhelmed everything else.
“Do you know what my parents did as labor?”
A couple of loose strands from her golden hair swayed as she nodded, falling onto her face, and I reached for them, curling them around my finger.
“Our race has always prided itself on our ability to construct and erect beautiful cities, castles, and everything in between.”
“Master builders,” I whispered without an ounce of surprise. It took one look at this astonishing place to realize the true measure of their talent. If they had built an entire city and castle inside a cavernous mountain to such a level of detail and craftsmanship, I couldn’t even imagine what they would be capable of in the human world, with modern construction tools and machinery.
“The Warlock King took advantage of that,” she continued, “forcing them to build the Crimson Fortress for him… and a portal to the Mirror World.”
“A portal?” I asked, shocked. Not wanting to even imagine the damage he and the four-headed monster could do if they crossed through it.
“He has never been able to use it,” she clarified instantly, seeing the alarm in my eyes. “In order for the portal to work, it needed more magic than he possessed, which is one of the reasons he killed the senior wizards in his family. Raithian channeled their magic into a rare stone that had been in their family for generations, but during the uprising, the stone was lost or destroyed—I’m not entirely sure which. It was never seen again.”
“What about the eye of the world?” My concern didn’t ease, remembering the way we had been able to travel here.
“It is unreachable to him.”
“How?”
“Dragons. They form a barrier around it, mimicking the land and hiding it from him. He searched high and low for it, but his men weren’t able to find it. Those are reclaimed lands now, so they can’t even get close. The Dragons protect it.”
A breath I didn’t even realize I was holding sunk my chest as it left me, and I dragged the back of my fingers along her cheek, absentmindedly playing with her strands.
The uprising…her mention of it tickled my mind; Aaron had mentioned it too.
“Will you tell me about the uprising?”
Melancholy grew inside her, showing through her doleful eyes, but she nodded.
“I am not privy to every side of the story, but I’ll tell you the one I know by heart,” she promised, and that was more than enough for me. “By that point, my parents had already come together as one, and they were tired, so tired of seeing their kin die from exhaustion and hunger. People were worked to death. Treated in ways not even animals deserved. Their bodies were buried in the construction like they were garbage. Without ceremony or even recognition of their lives. Without a thought of how they deserved to be remembered. My parents had seen so much pain and loss that they just couldn’t take it anymore.”
My gut constricted with the notion, and I wondered what had pushed that man to become so evil that he wouldn’t even respect someone’s death. “Did they plan to revolt?”
“They did. They knew that without the support of the Dragons they didn’t have a chance to win, but they were willing to die in the process because at least that meant being f-free.”
Emotion clogged her throat and she stopped herself, clearing her voice and swallowing the pain that arose with the memory of her parents suffering. Sitting up, she turned away from me so I wouldn’t see her reaction, and fought the teardrops that threatened to fall.
“Hey… no,” I whispered, getting off the bed until I crouched before her. “You don’t have to hide anything from me, Evie.”
She instantly looked away, avoiding my eyes. “I’m not hiding anything. I just need a minute to—”
“Stop,” I beseeched, reaching for her chin and tilting it until she looked at me. “You never have to hide what you feel from me. I won’t judge you. Not ever. Even when I can’t imagine what you are going through, I will always try to understand.”
Her sky-blue eyes said that a part of her was dying to believe that, even when the other needed to keep those walls up to protect herself. My mouth claimed hers. I pulled her to me with one hand while the other cradled her neck, my thumb caressing her jaw with each kiss.
Our lips danced together needily until I felt the guarded part of her give into me. Slightly pulling away, Evie glanced up at me, and in that brief moment, so many undecipherable things whirled in her eyes. Her gaze said she desperately wanted to let it all go and just be with me, but was too scared of what doing so meant for her.
