by Emma Harley
Raina would walk into the burning depths of the underworld for any of them. The world would make her a martyr, but she didn’t care. The world could burn around her for all she cared, so long as her family was safe and unharmed.
Kade’s soft snores broke through her thoughts, and she closed her eyes, willing her mind to calm as she let sleep fall over her.
∞∞∞
Raina flung her battered holdall over her shoulder as she placed a bundle of handwritten envelopes into a dresser drawer. Her official statement, naming Ryver as her heir, lay on top of the dressing table. Reaching under the heavy mattress, she dug out the torn pages from library books and set them in the drawer beside the letters, hoping one day her family would understand and forgive her for keeping them in the dark. She glanced around her room quickly before she followed Kade down to the foyer. Aija and Alexei were saying goodbye to King Albior and Queen Lila as they spotted the newlyweds.
“Are you going somewhere Raina?” her father asked stiffly. She grinned at Kade and nodded.
“Kade surprised me last night. He has arranged for us to take a trip around the world so I can learn about other cultures and countries. I’m leaving with him today,” she giggled excitedly.
Her heart pounded painfully as she caught the remnants of hurt on their faces. They would not soon forget the snubs from her wedding. Aija dumbfounded expressions stilled for a moment before she forced a smile to her lips.
“Well I hope you both enjoy your holiday,” she said softly.
“Take care of my squad while I am away,” Raina said, the note of farewell evident as she turned her head towards the mingling scents that ripped at her heart.
Raina pushed away the clawing pain in her chest as she spotted her squad in the dining hall with Logan, Kalen and Elias. For the first time in weeks, they were all smiling and laughing together. And if Izak's woeful face was any indication, probably nursing some awful hangovers too. It had been a while since they dared break breath around her. She had been unbearable to event speak with lately. Her mere presence would ruin the atmosphere immediately, and she preferred to remember them like this. Laughing and carefree, if only for a few moments.
“Do you want to say goodbye?” Kade interrupted her thoughts and she turned to him.
“No it’s okay,” she smiled, “I won’t be away forever.” His face fell at her comment, but he plastered a smile and kissed her hair.
“Come along, my queen, our plane is waiting.”
With a final wave to the monarchs, Raina forced herself to smile and pretend she wasn’t dying inside as she followed Kade out the doors of the palace and into the waiting car.
Chapter 20
L ogan barely moved from his bed anymore.
Kalen had tried to drag him up for days now, but he was a shell of his usual self. He couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t eat. His beard had grown in over a few days, and he hadn’t bothered to shave it. Raina had rejected him yet again, and it was taking all of his willpower to open his eyes in the morning and begin a day without her. His dreams were filled with her laughter, their kisses, her scent, her ferocious temper and those sparkling eyes.
And now she was gone. Off travelling the world with some pompous prick just so he could be king. But he knew deep down she was gone before she walked out the palace doors. She didn’t even bother to say goodbye to him.
Elias had enough of him wallowing in his self-pity, and he dragged him out of bed and forced him into a shower. Once he was clean, he was dragged to the palace to be force-fed breakfast under the watchful eye of Alicia, who forbade him from thinking of “that selfish bitch”.
Her squad had all but denounced her from their ranks. Weeks of bitter arguments and her snarling temper had been the final straw for them all. Davin had made it clear that she tended to have an attitude, but for some reason she had ramped it up unnecessarily and driven them all to cutting ties with her. Nick had been the only person willing to stick it out, until the day she roared at him for being the most worthless member of the squad because he scored terribly in archery practice. From that moment forward, not one of them had spoken a word to her.
Alexei had begun to follow through on his promises to look after her team while she was away. JJ and Alicia were gifted a home within the city walls, and despite their objections, had reluctantly accepted the gift on Aija's insistence. The king had formally knighted them all, allowing them to maintain their exclusive squad and earn a wage to keep themselves comfortable in Raina's absence. None of them even dared speak her name, the subject eliciting too many differing emotions between them all. It only served to cause arguments.
Ryver had been formally recognised as Raina's heir, and his father issued a decree legitimising him as a prince of Avellia, the heir presumptive to the Crown Princess. His days had been filled with court training, which he quickly ignored in favour of leading battlements to the wall. Prince Raubyn had followed him, leading his own legion to be the first line of defence at the crumbling wall.
Both had claimed their actions were out of duty to their country, but before they deployed, they had secretly admitted that Raina would castrate them if she knew that they sat around doing nothing in the face of a war. The princes had made their way to the wall, making Alexei promise he would tell Raina that their actions were out of duty to her, and her alone.
Logan wandered aimlessly through the halls before her scent caught him, weakened from over a week of her absence, and he found himself standing in her room. Her assortment of plushies and teddies still lay in a row across her shelves, even some clothes lay scattered across the floor. He half expected her to come barging in behind him and yell at him for invading her privacy.
He ran a finger along her jewellery box and sniffed a bottle of perfume as though it would fill the hole he felt. Most of her human clothes were gone, and he noticed with a jolt that her weapons were missing from the bottom of her wardrobe. He poked around, assuming she had just moved them somewhere safer, but his search was fruitless. For whatever reason she must have taken her weapons on holiday with her.
He gripped her blue elephant tightly, unable to hold back from inhaling her soft scent from the plush toy. A cascading mound of wedding gifts lay unopened in the corner of her room, patiently waiting for her to come back for them. Tossing away the remnants of his dignity, he tucked the toy under his arm and began searching for her clothing. Looking for anything that may still have her scent on it, so he could keep it beside him until she returned.
For anything that would stop the constant ache in his soul.
He rummaged through her clothing and he spotted a rumpled blue shirt in her drawer. He recognised it easily as the one she had taken from him before they left the human world. He pulled it out, and his eyes fell on a stack of envelopes hidden underneath. Torn pages were stuffed in messily and he scooped it all out, noticing his own name on an envelope.
He dumped them down on the bed beside him as he ripped open the letter. His gut had been screaming at him for days to go to her room. Instead he wallowed in his misery, never realising that his gut has never steered him wrong before.
His chest twisted and tightened as he read through her bubbly handwriting before flying through the halls in a fury. He found the monarchs in the office they used for planning strategies, staring at him as he burst through the doors.
“You need to see this,” he snarled, slamming the stack of papers on the table. Nick and Davin came rushing in after seeing him fly through the halls like a crazed beast. He handed them the letters addressed to them, roaring at a guard to summon the others as he scanned over the torn pages she had left behind.
“Where the fuck is Taranis?” he growled. Alexei didn’t look up from his letter, his amethyst eyes a swirling blaze of anger and grief.
“He took a few days off, call one of the guards to fetch him.”
JJ sent the guard to find the general and sat down to read his own letter. Aija dropped hers to the table, fluttering like a dead leaf
as it landed atop the mound of once-important documents. Alexei gripped her tiny hand as the sobs poured from her chest.
“She’s known for weeks,” Logan growled, slamming his fist on the table, “She’s known since before we visited the oracle and she said nothing.” He tossed his letter onto the pile before them, his anger rising so dangerously that green flames began to lick at his fingertips. Alexei peered over at the discarded note, a pang of jealousy contorting his face when he spotted that her message to Logan was considerably longer than the one she had written to him.
“We tried to get her to admit to that, but she was in denial about it. At least now we know why she was so awful to us for the last few weeks.”
The guard came into the room and gave a salute, his face stern.
“Your Majesties, we have been unable to make contact with General Taranis. His apartment is empty and he has removed his belongings from the bunk house.”
∞∞∞
Raina stood on the rickety dock, her hooded cloak barely keeping the windy chill from seeping into her bones.
It had been roughly a week since she split ways with Kade and Ceressa, as they toured the world on a lover’s getaway while keeping up the ruse that his wife was with him instead. They had gotten on a plane heading east, and she had sneaked onto a cargo ship heading south. Her cover story had given them the perfect opportunity to be alone together, and they took it. She cast a few worried glances behind her at the once-bustling market street. The vendors were shutting up shop and heading home, which meant he was late. Or he wasn’t coming at all.
The princess-general shivered as she stared out over the sparkling ocean. The dipping sun scattered shards of light across the rippling water, like a million tiny gems riding the waves towards her feet.
She shouldn't feel worried. She had shoved all of her emotions into the box only a few days ago, which could only mean they were coming back and she would have to shove them all in again before it all became too much to bear. Subtle, creaking footsteps on the dock made her jump as a cloaked figure made its way towards her.
“I almost thought you weren’t coming.”
Malakhai dropped his hood as his silver eyes caught the sunlight, swirling into a heart-wrenching shade of gold.
“When you mentioned your emotions were gone, I admit I hesitated. You’re a bitch when you don’t have them.”
“They’re coming back already. Did everything work out?” she asked sternly. He smirked, shrugging slightly with an arrogant glance towards the dwindling markets.
“I would say you were successful but that sounds too sarcastic. Even by my standards. Alicia forbids mention of your name around her, you are solely to be called ‘that selfish bitch’. Your parents believe you hate them, your squad has disowned you, and poor Logan has been in a deep depression since before you left. Congratulations princess, you finally got your wish.”
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“What wish?”
His face was stony as he looked out over the water. Raina was very aware he was avoiding her gaze, but she couldn’t blame him. He had watched as she treated everyone she loved like trash, belittling and cutting at each of them until they broke. He had every right to despise her as much as she despised herself.
“You’re alone. Aside from me, you managed to push away everyone who cared about you.”
“I needed them to hate me. I need to be ahead of them or one of them will end up with the fate meant for me. And I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” she scowled, "Before I visited the oracle I had been pushing them away slowly, but I needed to speed it up a bit." Taranis shook his head sadly as he boarded the merchant ship beside them.
“You don’t know it will happen to them though, do you?”
“I’m not risking it,” she snapped, “every single scroll, book and legend said the same thing. Kade asked the oracle and she confirmed it. The one who deals the killing blow must take the place. Erebus can’t be killed unless someone takes his place as a god of darkness. I’m the one designed to kill him, so I’m the one destined to die and take over. Why do you think the oracle couldn’t speak of Erebus’ death?”
The general eyed her curiously and patiently waited for her to continue.
“She can’t see the future actions of a god. The path for my destiny ends with me becoming one, so she couldn’t even tell me anything about my own future. She couldn’t tell me how to kill him, all she could do was guess.”
Taranis dropped his bag to the floor of their cabin with a thud and wrapped his arms around her.
“They only wanted to help you,” he pointed out. Raina shoved him away angrily.
“That’s exactly how they’ll get themselves killed. They can’t kill him. They will try to help me and they will die. And it’s not like I can see them in the afterlife because I won’t get that.” Raina paused and took a breath, overwhelmed by the sudden flood of emotions rushing back in.
“Once I kill Erebus, I will become the God… or I suppose the Goddess of Darkness. I don’t even know what I will remember or what I will look like. But I will be the one forced to wipe out the goodness in people’s hearts to maintain a balance. I will be forced to live amongst demons and creatures from the pits of hell. Why would I ever condemn someone I love to an eternity with no light?” Taranis took her hand in his, so tiny compared to him, and led her to the deck of the ship, watching the sunlight disappear over the horizon as they sailed away from the land.
“We’ll find a way out of this. Starting with those damned Erinyes. This was their stupid idea, and we’ll make them fix it. They’re already gods, I’m sure one of them can accept a promotion.”
Raina chuckled lightly, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the horizon as the land behind them grew smaller and smaller, until all she could see was the ocean in every direction. She would find a way to summon the damned Erinyes. However long it took, she would stand before the Goddesses of Vengeance. And for the future stolen from her, she would fight.
For the mother’s unable to hold their daughter again.
For the father and brother waiting for the princess who would never return.
For the male waiting for his love.
For the family who adopted each other, waiting for their sister to lead them again.
She would fight.
Acknowledgements
I want to give a huge thanks to my amazing fiancé, Corey, for pushing me to complete this book and putting up with my various breakdowns and dramatic over-reactions when I hit a wall. Your support helped me realise a goal I have had since I was a child, and now I have finally completed my first novel. I really could not have done this without you. The patience and self-control you must have needed to deal with me is unparalleled and I can’t thank you enough.
A small moment of silence to be held for the half-written manuscripts lost to discarded USB sticks and broken laptops.
Thank you to my own squad, Fawkes, Pharis and Feli, for guiding me through so many worlds of fantasy and ultimately giving me the inspiration I needed. Shout out to my sister Nicola who was rooting for me to get this done just so I could put her name in somewhere.
This book is dedicated to my family; my daughter Talia, who listened to all my ideas and told me it was so awesome no matter how bad the idea was, and my son Killian, who had an uncanny knack for knowing when I needed to take a break and yelled at me until I did.
