A Storm of Glass and Stars (The Oncoming Storm Book 4)

by Marion Blackwood

  Soft thuds echoed as I picked apart a pile and reorganized it. The monotonous task helped clear my mind while I tried to make a decision about my future. Or at least work up the courage to go back to the Spirit Garden and ask for Elaran’s advice.

  Placing my hands on the biggest stack, one that made it all the way to the ceiling, I tried to shift it so that I would have some more room to move. It swayed precariously but edged a little to the side. Not wanting to have hundreds of books crash down on top of my head, I decided not to push my luck and instead be satisfied with the small extra space it had already provided me.

  What was the worst that could happen if I went back to the Spirit Garden? I would tell an empty room how I felt and Elaran wouldn’t be there to answer. But he was already gone so that didn’t change anything. Tilting my head up, I let out an exasperated breath. I squinted at the ceiling. Huh. With brows furrowed, I tipped my head back down.

  Inside my brain, reason won out at last. The only thing that would happen if I went down there was to reconfirm that my friend was already gone. And it was time I accepted that.

  A small pile of books toppled over as I climbed back out. It was time to face the empty silence of the Spirit Garden.

  WATER DRIPPED BEHIND the flower-covered bushes and white mist swirled in the air. I drew a deep breath. How did I even start?

  “Hi, Elaran,” I mumbled awkwardly. “I don’t even know if you can hear me but I need your help.” A humorless laugh escaped my throat. “Pretty rich coming from the one who got you killed, right?”

  A dark green leaf fell into the pond, creating ripples on the surface. I drew another deep shuddering inhale.

  “I’m thinking about giving up the last bit of my old self. The darkness.” Placing my hands on the damp material, I braced myself on the couch. “What do you think I should do?”

  No grumpy archer with his furrowed brows and crossed arms broke the stillness. Only the soft dripping of water echoed throughout the room. That gaping maw in my chest split wide open.

  “Of course you’re not answering.” I barked another bitter laugh. “You’re gone. Just like everyone else. One more corpse in the vast trail of bodies I’ve left in my wake. Hurt and destroy and burn things to the ground. That’s all I ever do. The Oncoming Storm, indeed.”

  My vision blurred and I shook my head to clear it. That infernal calming sound of rippling water made me want to break something. I shot to my feet.

  “You’re dead!” I screamed at the empty room. “You’re all dead!”

  Blue eyes stared at me from across the pond. I jerked back as Rogue grinned at me and started around the water. On the other side, the well-oiled blond hair of Eric and William Fahr appeared. They glared at me while advancing in the same direction.

  “You’re dead,” I repeated. “You’re not really here.”

  “You butchered my son,” Eric Fahr whispered in a voice filled with poison.

  Rogue’s grin turned malicious. “Yes, you did kill me. Even after I begged for my life. You didn’t have to kill me but you did it anyway. Just because you wanted to.”

  Shaking my head, I took a step back just as two more figures appeared from the mist. A muscular man in workman’s clothes and a gangly one with messy hair and glasses strode towards me.

  “I was a scholar,” Keutunan’s late Master of the Scribes’ Guild said. “I never hurt anyone. Never. And you killed me. Poisoned my beloved tea and watched me die.”

  “I...” I stammered before giving my head a violent shake to clear it. “This isn’t real.”

  The previous Master of the Builders’ Guild crossed his powerful arm and shot me a look of such devastation that I thought I would crumble to dust right there.

  “I had a son,” he stated. “A wife and a son who needed me to provide for them. And you killed me. What do you think happened to them afterwards? Did you think they lived happily ever after? No. Without me to support them, they fell into poverty.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I checked on them afterwards and they were fine.”

  The white mist parted around them as they drew closer. “How long has it been since you were back in Keutunan? They are not fine anymore.”

  The three Fahr men had almost rounded the pond, so I backed away further. While the Guild Masters I had killed last year to save Liam continued advancing on me, a whole horde of men appeared. King Adrian cocked his head to the right and stared at me with steel in his black eyes while the soldiers around him started forward.

  “You butchered my men,” the late king declared. “They were only doing their job and you killed them for it. They were going to stand down there in my tent after you had slit my throat but you flew into a dark rage and killed them anyway.” He threw his arms wide. “They had families, you godsdamn street rat!”

  My hand shook as I raised an arm and held up a finger. “They were gonna kill me. They almost killed Liam.”

  “Not only did you conspire to kill my husband, you are the reason I am dead as well.” Queen Charlotte materialized in the mist like a gray statue. “If you had not been so late with your warning, and had not been fighting with my son, I would not have had to take a bullet for him.”

  I stumbled backwards, almost tripping over the couch. They were closing in on me from every direction now but I continued backing away while panic and dread spread like cold poison through my body, weighing down my limbs.

  “I never meant for you to die,” I mumbled at the gray queen.

  “What about me?” A man with brown hair and thin lips had appeared to my left and was quickly rounding the pond as well. “Me, you meant to kill.”

  “You deserved it.” I drew a shaky breath and pointed a finger at Makar. “You deserved what you got.”

  “Did I?” Lord Makar waved a hand at the Fahr brothers. “They pressured me into doing it. I couldn’t refuse a member of the Council of Lords.” He moved his arm to indicate Rogue. “And just like Eric’s son, I begged you not to kill me but you did it anyway. You cold-blooded killer. You really are rotten all the way through.”

  “Even when you don’t do it on purpose, you bring death to everyone around you.” A young girl with brown hair stepped out from behind a blooming jasmine bush. “I told you I didn’t want to get involved but you just had to show off your skills. And then when you had the chance to stop a guy from stabbing me, what did you do? You hesitated. And I bled out in a filthy dark alley.”

  “Rain,” I gasped. Tears welled up in my eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. You know I didn’t mean to.”

  “Yes, but that’s the problem, Storm,” a man’s voice said. Auburn hair billowed in the air as Elaran strode forward. “Bad things always happen when you’re near. You blasted me with hurricane winds, shocked me with lightning, and then dropped part of a building on top of me.” My friend shook his head. “You don’t think. You just do whatever you want and it’s everyone else who pays the price.”

  “Please don’t say that, Elaran. I never meant for...” I trailed off.

  Damp leaves brushed against my arm as I retreated further into the room. Rogue was only a few paces away and his dad and uncle weren’t far behind. The Masters of the Builders’ and Scribes’ Guild closed in from the other side while King Adrian, Queen Charlotte, and all the soldiers cut off the escape route to the door. Lord Makar leered at me from behind their blockade. The worst sight of all, however, was the disappointed eyes of Elaran and Rain as they approached me from the other side of the still water.

  My foot slipped on some wet leaves and I stumbled into another couch. Fabric ripped as I stepped on my dress in a desperate move to remain on my feet. Hatred and displeasure burned in the eyes around me. Cold glass met me as my back slammed into the wall at the back of the room. I whipped my head in every direction. People I had killed closed in from all sides. I was trapped.

  “You killed me in my sleep,” the Master of the Builders’ Guild said. “Right next to my wife and while my son was sleeping in the nex
t room. What kind of monster are you?”

  I held up my hands in a silent plea to stop their advance. “Please.”

  “You got us involved in a fight I didn’t want to be in and then you let me die in it.” Rain shook her head at me. “You should’ve had my back. Why didn’t you have my back?”

  “I did! I had your back.” Tears streamed down my face. “I just made a mistake. A mistake.”

  Elaran pushed through the crowd of corpses and stopped right in front of me. “You killed me. I thought you were supposed to be my friend.”

  Yellow eyes gazed at me from only a stride away. Eyes that would never again see the light of day. My heart twisted into a tight knot until pain dripped from it. Eyes that I had shut forever. Air refused to fill my lungs. I slid down the wall and braced myself on my hands and knees. Choked sobs burst past my closed throat while tears full of regret and guilt formed a pool on the floor. Above me, accusing voices continued raining down blame while the ring of dead bodies closed in, bending down and stabbing condemning fingers at me.

  “You murdered my son.”

  “My wife had to sleep with her dead husband in her bed for hours.”

  “I begged you to spare me.”

  “You killed me because you wanted to.”

  “All you ever do is bring violence and bloodshed to the people around you. You should’ve stayed away. Everyone is much happier without you.”

  “Monster.”

  “Bringer of death.”

  “Villain.”

  The agony inside me was so sharp I thought I was going to shatter into a million pieces that could never be made whole again. Slumping down on my side, I cradled my head in my arms and rocked back and forth. My breath came in fits and starts. The descent into madness is a slow one indeed. But when you finally reach the bottom, the whole tower crashes down on top of you all at once.

  “Please stop, please stop, please stop,” I begged the people I had killed and whose sympathy I did not deserve.

  Everything I was, everything I had been, fell away from me like shards of a shattered mirror until all that was left was the guilt and pain and the massacred heart inside my hollow chest.

  A voice tried to break through my sobbing and labored breathing but I couldn’t hear what it said. I was long lost in my own personal hell. Physical pain stung my cheek as someone gave me a hard slap. My eyes fluttered open to find dark violet eyes staring at me.

  “You have to fight!” Maesia growled at me.

  I couldn’t even muster enough energy to be surprised that she was there. Instead, I simply looked back at her with dark green eyes that had lost every single spark they had ever held.

  “I don’t want to fight,” I whispered. Sobs racked my exhausted chest. “I’m tired of fighting.”

  Not sure whether the strange star elf was actually there or if she was just another figure sent to torture me, I closed my eyes again and went back to crying my shattered heart out on the cold hard floor.

  They were right, all of them. I had killed them, either by choice or by carelessness, and I had broken the hearts of the loved ones they left behind. No wonder. What else could a cursed girl who had sold her soul to a demon do? I poisoned everything I touched. Hopelessness washed over me. How was I ever supposed to make up for all the awful things I had done?

  33.

  “Storm,” a soft voice said. “Come back. Follow my voice.”

  Still lying on the damp floor and forcing gasps in and out of my lungs, I opened my eyes. The mist had parted and the people I had killed were gone. Instead, Queen Nimlithil and Niadhir crouched beside me. The queen placed a graceful hand on my cheek.

  “Come back to us.”

  “There is nothing to come back to,” I whispered. “I can never make up for all the hurt I’ve caused.”

  “No one is beyond saving,” the queen said while Niadhir picked me up and drew me to my feet. “And there is always something you can do.”

  The concerned scholar looped an arm around my back to keep me from falling over. He bent down and leaned his forehead again my temple. “I was so worried.”

  “Niadhir,” the queen in her gem-decorated headdress began, “I think perhaps it is time to share our secret with Storm. She needs to know that there is still hope.”

  “I agree.”

  Since I was too drained to question or argue, I simply allowed them to lead me out of the Spirit Garden and to whatever destination this secret was located. I blinked against the warm afternoon sun when we unexpectedly stepped outside the castle doors. The fresh air helped clear my head but I was still in shock.

  “Can we just stop here for a moment?” I said and dug my heels into the stone. “I need to breathe.”

  Arriving anywhere unprepared and without my wits was causing panic to flare up my spine. Whatever they wanted to show me, I had to be in control of myself before we got there. The queen and the scholar looked at me with curious eyes but came to a halt in the middle of the courtyard. I withdrew from Niadhir’s grip and turned to face the sun. Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply while the golden afternoon rays warmed my face.

  Those ridiculous birds were back, chirping happily from the trees, but despite my irritation at their undue joy, their song helped ground me in the present. For those precious few seconds, there were no ghosts from my past haunting me, no searing agony or blinding regret. Only me, the birds, and the warm sun.

  Though I still felt exhausted and drained like a hollow husk, those few moments of peace allowed my brain to calm down and move from pure survival mode into some kind of normalcy. When I opened my eyes again, I could once more process what was happening around me.

  We were outside, standing in the courtyard about halfway to the carriage storage. The late afternoon sun painted the brilliant white castle to my left in golden swirls. Leaves rustled in the breeze. I drew another deep breath of fresh air. Now. Whatever they wanted to show me, I was ready now.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Queen Nimlithil nodded at Niadhir, who resumed his place beside me. They led me towards the building where they stored prisoner carriages. Just when I was about to ask why we were going there, they adjusted their course and aimed for the grand double doors set into the gigantic white dome next to it. That strange otherworldly atmosphere vibrated inside me again as we stopped outside the doors. I wondered what was in there.

  Metal clanked as the queen produced a large and complicated-looking key. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. I squinted at it while she used it to unlock the doors. A thud sounded. Niadhir grabbed a hold of the handle on the left and pulled. It swung open on soundless hinges.

  “There is no way to prepare you for what you will see inside, so I will not even try.” Queen Nimlithil motioned for me to enter. “Please go ahead.”

  The inside of the enormous dome was like a world in itself. Lush green grass stretched out before me while sunlight streamed in from the open ceiling high above. A waterfall tumbled down from gray cliffs and pooled into a lake. I stared uncomprehending at the humongous white creature lounging by the side of the water. Light glinted off its shiny scales as it raised its head to stare back at me.

  I sucked in a sharp breath between my teeth. Stumbling backwards, I flattened myself again the wall.

  “That’s a dragon!” I stabbed a shaking finger towards it. “That’s an actual dragon!”

  “Yes, it is.” Queen Nimlithil put a gentle hand on my back and pushed me forward. “This is Aldeor the White. He and I have been friends for many centuries. I promise, he will not harm you.”

  The rows of sharp teeth gleaming in the sunlight would suggest otherwise but after an initial moment of resistance, I let the queen guide me forward. Getting eaten by a dragon would at least make for an interesting death.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “People say all the dragons are gone. That they disappeared around the same time as magic did.”

  “They are correct,” Niadhir said as he sidled up to me and placed an
arm around my back. “More or less, at least.”

  The scholar and I stopped at the edge of the water while the queen continued along its edge. When she reached the dragon’s hulking shape, she placed a hand on his jaw. Leaning forward, she whispered something that I was too far away to hear. Aldeor the White closed his silver-colored eyes in an affectionate gesture before opening them again.

  Huh. Queen Nimlithil was telling the truth. The two of them were indeed friends.

  “Aldeor approached me centuries ago with a growing concern.” The queen stroked the dragon’s hard scales as she returned to us. “A concern that I share.”

  I could barely take my eyes off the majestic dragon. His white scales shimmered in the sunlight and cast glittering reflections in the water. Wisdom seemed to drift from his whole being. Never had I imagined that I, of all people, would one day get to witness such a spectacular sight.

  Finally tearing my gaze from the extraordinary wonder in front of me, I turned to Queen Nimlithil. “What concern was that?”

  Sadness washed over her beautiful features. “First of all, the endless struggle for technological development is destroying nature and creating lethal weapons. But most importantly, there is too much hurt and pain in the world. Every day, people fight and kill each other, leaving devastating grief behind. Do you remember my reason for outlawing firearms?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It is for the same reason. Without pistols, the death and destruction is less prominent. Fewer people are killed in needless acts of anger.”

  Scrunching up my eyebrows, I studied her. “But people still die. Even without guns. They die of swords, arrows, knives.” I shrugged. “Old age.”

  “That is correct. Declaring pistols illegal was only a small part in a much greater plan.” Queen Nimlithil spread her arms in a hopeless gesture. “The main problem is that there is so much pain across all of Weraldi. The world should be a peaceful and beautiful place. Not marred by death and violence and scars.”