Decimate

by D. Fischer

  DECIMATE

  Book Four of

  RISE OF THE REALMS

  D. FISCHER

  Decimate (Rise of the Realms: Book Four)

  Copyright © 2019 by D. Fischer

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any printed or electronic form, without written consent from the author. This book is fictional. All names, characters, and incidents within are pure fiction, produced by the author’s vivid imagination.

  This book contains adult content. Mature readers only. The author will not be held responsible if a minor reads this book.

  ASIN: B07SD5FB37

  D. Fischer

  19 published books

  |THE CLOVEN PACK|

  A Gifted Curse Out of the Darkness

  Above This Grave Caught in the Crossfire

  |RISE OF THE REALMS|

  Reborn Disobedient Rift The Vault

  Decimate Ruin coming 2019

  |NIGHT OF TERROR|

  Book One Book Two Book Three

  |GRIM FAIRYTALES|

  When Hope Was Forgotten Cure The Enemy

  A Cold Soul

  FIND MORE

  at D. Fischer's Amazon

  A Dedication to YOU . . .

  This book is for all those who are different, all those struggling to be ‘normal.’

  Be you because there’s so much beauty in it. Be strong because you are iron, you are steel, you are fire. Fight for what’s yours. Fight for your place in this world. Embrace the hard times because you’re worth it. No matter what they say, what they think, or how they act: You. Are. Worthy.

  Everything in this book is fictional. It is not based on true events, persons, or creatures that go bump in the night, no matter how much we wish it were…

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Ever since the day I died, it’s been one battle after another. A battle for love. A battle for my soul. A battle for life. A battle just to breathe without crumbling under the weight of the realms and those who rule them. And here I am again, fighting for the one I love while facing more danger, more tragedy, both mental and physical. I’m constantly running or continually fighting to survive. And even though Fate has some sort of majestic plan to save us from being wiped from the realms, from complete decimation, it doesn’t make me feel safe. Not in the slightest.

  Because nowhere is safe, and none are protected.”

  - ELIZA PLAATS

  CHAPTER ONE

  TEMBER

  DIVINE REALM

  I sharply inhale, and the unfamiliar smells of another realm stroke my taste buds. They’re pleasant, an utter delight to my hypersensitive senses, and my eyelids flutter with the deliciousness of it all. Almost floral with each subtly warm breeze, then a musky taste lingering in the pockets of my cheeks between each inhale.

  Frowning, eyes closed, I try to place the aroma with the many stored in my memory but fail to recall. Lilac? No, not quite. The sickle tips - the buds which never bloom on the sacred fields of the Kaju tribe? No. No, it’s not that either.

  Nevertheless, I drink it in and it eases my frayed nerves, knits my broken heart, and lulls me into a sedated state. All feels right across the realms like I didn’t just watch the woman I love die. As though my throat doesn’t burn from my screams when I wailed her name with the agony of a thousand lifetimes. When her soul fled to a place unknown, a place I couldn’t follow. Did she travel to the void? Is there a special place for the fee when their ruling ends?

  Slowly, I open my eyes and survey my surroundings, attempting to rid myself of the ache by distraction alone. The forest I’m standing in is dark, absent of the flowers I seek. Dim shadows cast by thick tree trunks blacken the atmosphere, but not so much that I can’t see. Some shadows are exiled, lit by bright radiant bugs clinging to the profound beige bark. The palm-sized bugs’ iridescent wings beat furiously even as their legs clutch the tree. When the wings rub together, it sounds like a soft humming pull of violin strings.

  I reach out to touch one of the alluring bugs closest to me, hovering my hand in the air. But then I think better of it. The tiny insect didn’t instinctually fly away like I had anticipated. In not doing so, an internal warning bell grates at my nerves. No matter the species, those who don’t seek shelter in the presence of a seemingly bigger threat are usually the threat themselves. A single touch isn’t worth discovering their nature, nor devising if they’re as silky as they appear.

  The trees’ canopy of branches adorning dark purple leaves block the light from the sky. Water pockets itself in the clear veins, swelling the center. No vegetation blossoms below my feet, further aiding the dancing shadows that call me to frolic like a wood nymph with their silent song. Instead, black dirt blankets the forest floor. The dirt is deeply cracked, every ounce of water drained by the roots it shelters.

  I turn. The end of the forest is up ahead, and shimmering gold grass rolls down a gentle hill. Across the large pasture is the base of a mountain, rigid and full of rocky chunks fallen from age and wear.

  A cave entrance opens above the base, the hole dark and dank. I stride toward the pasture, leaving the bugs behind. Its brightly lit grass is more appealing than this shadowed, hollow forest. While doing so, I survey my surroundings for any sign of humanoid life. I’d even settle for the one who forced me here, for the one who ripped me from my lover’s side.

  “Fate?” I call, rustling my wings as I walk.

  No one answers, and I frown. Why would he bring me here if he wasn’t here himself? I was lifted into the air after Erma’s death. I felt his power behind it and could do nothing to stop it. By the will of the Divine - Fate, more specifically - I was given her power. I don’t feel that power here. I only feel like . . . me: an ordinary angel with black wings gifted from a dragon’s tear. It makes me question why I’m here and what purpose this Divine, god-like species has for me. What would be the purpose otherwise if not but for a private conversation? Or does he plan to keep me here . . . forever?

  The dry dirt crumbles below my firm feet until I reach the edge of the forest and tentatively step onto the gold grass. It’s short and kept nicely, trimmed on a regular basis. Or perhaps it just doesn’t grow at all.

  When I’m sure I won’t break the gold slivers, I plant both feet and crouch. My fingers reach for the grass, intent on feeling if it’s as soft and smooth as it suggests. As soon as my skin touches the blades, it slices my index finger and slurps the blood before the droplet can plop to the soil.

  Hissing, I yank my hand back. It doesn’t hurt because I still can’t feel pain, but grass that drinks only blood? Nature that takes only sacrifice? This isn’t a realm I should be on. Nope. I should not be here.

  I’m a guardian. Guardians don’t believe in sacrifice of the innocent.

  But I’m not a guardian anymore, am I? I’m . . . more.

  And maybe, I’m not so innocent as I believe myself to be.

  I tilt my head to the sky, rapidly blinking at the change of light. The sun is large, so large that I can’t peer at it for long without seeing green stars flecking my vision. Twi
sting, I quickly shield my eyes from it, and a movement catches my attention back inside the forest. Automatically, I hold out my hand and call upon Ire, but the weapon doesn’t materialize. I frown, glancing at my palm where it should rest and then back to the trunks.

  A shadowed figure, black and sparkling like it holds the stars the sky is meant to, darts from tree to tree. I fully stand, unsure if this is an attack by the creatures roaming this realm. It’s a quick human-shaped being, female in gender, and her hair wisps from her back with her darting speed. It’s difficult to make out the rest of her features, no matter how hard I squint. However, after a few moments of watching, I relax and roll the strain from my shoulders.

  For a brief moment, she pauses in her dance of shadows. Her hand snatches forward, catching a bug, and I almost miss her popping the insect into a small container before she darts to the next pocket of darkness. This shadowed sparkling woman has edgy eyes - two tiny bright orbs. Translucent white hair drapes down to her back in beautiful untangled strands, and it flows as though underwater. As though gravity does not have the same effect on her as it does the rest of us.

  “Breathtaking, isn’t she?” a voice says behind me.

  I swivel my head over my shoulder, and black and gold specks hover there, obscuring my view of the dank cave off in the distance. Fate’s dots churn like a traveling swarm of bees.

  “Can she see me?”

  “No,” he answers. “You are only here in spirit. Your body is still on the Guardian Realm.”

  I look to the grass below my elf-gifted shoes. “Then how did I cut myself on the grass?”

  “I said she can’t see you,” he says with a slow draw of patience. “I didn’t say you couldn’t succumb to my realm’s afflictions.”

  “Comforting,” I mumble sarcastically.

  “It wasn’t meant to be.”

  The rapid eye movement as my gaze flicks from dot to dot makes my head throb, and I peer to the trees instead. We’re silent, watching her continue to give chase, gracefully snatching each bug. It’s entirely quiet here, but not in an eerie way. It’s peaceful, and I could easily believe war has never broken out across the land and blood isn’t splattered across grass on a regular basis.

  “What is she?”

  Although I know he doesn’t need the oxygen, he deeply inhales and then slowly releases his exhale. The gesture was more for my own comfort than for his. After all, he doesn’t have any lungs. He doesn’t even have a body. Not a true one, anyway.

  “Her kind are known as the Shadow People,” he continues in a voice of an ancient spirit. “She lives in the Shadled Forest with her people.”

  “Her people?” I cock my head to the side.

  “Yes. Amala is the princess of her clan and the designation ismuch more than just the title.”

  I suppose if you live on the Divine Realm, hierarchies will still be established to keep the peace and to govern its people effectively. It still leaves me with many questions, but I push them away. I sweep my arm out, instead. “This is the Shadled Forest, I presume?”

  “Yes.”

  My teeth snap shut. “And there are more of them?” I look around, taking in the scenery once more. Expecting to find a group of starry people identical to her, I sigh in disappointment. One of them is breathtaking, but a clan of them would be something to behold.

  He chuckles, and the dots shake, the sound seemingly coming from deep within his non-existent chest. “Very good.”

  The princess darts behind a thick trunk and I watch on, waiting, anxious, but she never reemerges.

  “Where’d she go?” I ask.

  “Shadow People often travel by shadow, Tember,” he responds with a lifetime of gentleness. “It is why they do not cross from the Shadled to the blades of gold. They may, and often do, take on humanoid forms, but there are many evils here – recent evils that plague their people. Alas, they are strongest in their true form and will hold that form when they venture from their village. Many wish to see them dead. Do not be fooled by the peace you presently feel. It is false. This realm is unsafe.”

  “Dead?” I echo and take in the trees as predators instead of considering their exquisite beauty. The shadow woman seemed benign and harmless. Who would wish such a creature dead?

  I blink, remembering my earlier hypothesis about the bugs. Often, the most beautiful are the most deadly. Perhaps some wish them dead because they’re a strong people, formidable, even. By the swiftness of her actions, the grace of her movements, I can easily see her as something lethal.

  A gathering wind howls over the top of the trees’ juicy purple leaves. Within the gust are a thousand livid whispers which grow in volume as it nears. It gathers speed as it dips from the canopies to the golden grass, and my fingers twitch for a weapon at the frightening sight before me.

  A wraith. It’s a wraith.

  Humanoid in shape, it is neither male nor female, not from where I stand. Its upper half is bare, skeletal almost, with a thin layer of skin spread across the ribs, the long arms, the perfectly rounded head. As it dips farther, gathering even more speed, the scent of heavy iron tangs the breeze. I take a step back as its mouth widens with the many voices, the many screams it roars. Rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth form an ‘O’ in the absence of lips, and where there should be eyes are only three slits for nostrils, the two on the outside higher than the one in the middle. When it passes through me, a deep maroon wispy skirt traveling in its wake, I gasp at the slick, oily feeling it leaves behind inside my spirit.

  “How?” I huff, my breath taken away. If I were a living thing . . . if I were truly here, every fiber of my being knows I’d be dead right now. Is that why the princess left? Did she know this wraith was coming? Was the creature looking for her?

  “Wraiths,” he grunts. It’s the first time I’ve truly heard anger flaw his perfect voice, and for a moment, it throws me off kilter. I cross my arms to mask my startle, but my wings have no such pride and rustle as though shaking off droplets of chilly water.

  “They are a weapon.” His tone is curt, rude almost, and to avoid his edgy rage, I don’t press for answers. This seemingly calm realm is anything but. Dare I think it almost unstable?

  “I see,” I murmur, angling my body and watching it travel away, flying above the blades of blood-drinking grass. The gale whips the skirt of the wraith to and fro and, blissfully, takes the heavy scent with it.

  “Do you?” he asks, noticing my attention solely on the disappearing voices.

  I scoff at his accurate implication of my ignorance. “Of course not.”

  My vision is perfectly fine, but the intensity of this place is too much to take in all at once. I had imagined this realm was large and homed many great spirit-like creatures such as himself, but nothing like this. Nothing tangible. Nothing violent. Just the thought alone of the anomalies which roam this land further encourages the headache between my brows. Perhaps this is why he chose this area to meet me where I’d see less and have a chance to absorb most of it.

  “Why am I here?” I demand.

  “All new creatures of power travel here during transformation,” he replies. “It is our way.”

  I scowl. “Did Eliza? After all, she’s part fee now.”

  Having married one, Kheelan’s powers were passed to her, an equal share. Fee marrying humans or their subjects has rarely been done in the past. In fact, I’ve never seen it happen; if it has, it hasn’t been in my lifetime. So naturally, I’m not sure how it works. As a creature with an abundance of curiosity, I can’t help but ask.

  “No,” he answers. “She has no true authority. Yet.”

  I caught it, the extended word, the implication - but I keep my face blank and carefully neutral. Fate has plans. Many great plans that I doubt he’ll share with me.

  The silence stretches once again, and I inhale deeply, taking in the scents and trying to categorize them in a pocket of my mind. Nothing compares to what I smell, nothing matches the aromas. The colors are exquisitely
vibrant. They draw me in and beckon me to stay, an addiction - gentle reassurances to my present pain. They soothe my aches, my emotional agony. My loss. A sea of darkness is what I wade in, and an emotional storm and its tidal waves of drowning sorrows threaten to overcome me at any moment. It is by sheer will power that I manage to stay above it.

  I could live here, stay even, where war doesn’t break the people who battle for it, and love doesn’t die in the arms of their lover, because that’s what the scents lull me into thinking even when my conscience screams for me to leave.

  “You have many great things to accomplish, young one,” he begins cautiously.

  “And if I don’t want to?” I ask a bit too harshly. “If I want to stay?”

  “You cannot,” he warns. “Only Divine and our creatures may live on this realm, for it is not capable of holding a yin that doesn’t have a yang.”

  “A counterpart?” I ask flicking my gaze over my shoulder and staring at the circling specks of Fate. The buttery yellows and ominous blacks match well to the backdrop of the cave’s entrance and the grass crawling to it.

  What would be my counterpart? My kryptonite? Love, perhaps? After all, love is not a thing, not a being, but an intention – a rare possession. A promise. Something magical all in itself. A gift wrapped in the jagged edges of a curse, at least for me.

  “Yes,” he hisses. “If I’m forced to give an example, the willow-e-wisps can quiet the chatter of The Voice if they are so inclined to do so.”

  “I see.” Anguish and shame crumple my stony face. I don’t belong here is what he’s saying. At this moment, I don’t feel like I belong on my own realm either. Not without her there.

  “Do you?” he asks a heartbeat later.

  I lick my bottom lip and think it over. As easily as I could attempt it, I can’t hide from my pain, no matter which realm I seek comfort in. Erma wouldn’t want that for me. She’d want me to avenge her, to see my old charge to safety, to see Corbin’s life come to an end. I will do that . . . for her.