CHAPTER 29
“Only a huntress can see the hunter’s mark. However, the eye of a dragon can see them, which is a weakness to the hunter. How can a huntress hide if the eye of a dragon is always searching for them?” - Book of Azure
“KOEN!” I SHRIEK, MY VOICE cracking with fury as my brows draw together.
“What the hell is wrong with you!” I shout, feeling heat radiating through my neck.
“You don’t understand what she is capable of…”
“And you think I can’t handle this myself?” I snicker, my eyes locked on his lips that pull between his teeth with defiance.
“It's not that.”
“I dare her to try and burn me.” Klayra chokes on a laugh, wiping the sweat beads that roll down her face with her arm. “She has no idea who she has messed with.”
“You are like no other who has threatened to take my life here in the Realms. Seems as if everyone wants my life, even those who I thought I could trust.” I take a step forward, standing close to Koen who inhales deeply the moment I come near him.
“I am sorry about your brother, truly, but it's not like I willingly took his life.”
“I don’t believe a damn word you say.” Her face burns a crimson red, and she clenches her teeth tightly.
“Let me handle this,” Koen grunts over his shoulders, his curls whipping in the breeze as he glances my way at last, finally making eye contact. But his are dark, as if he is lifeless. I almost don’t recognize him, like fear is etched into every detail in not only his face, but body.
“I can handle this.” Our eyes both violently gaze at one another before he whips his gaze away. He’s pissed.
Good. He should be.
He has no right to fight my battles for me. As if he thinks I cannot handle it.
I scuff, internally laughing.
I’ll show him what I am capable of.
I will show them all.
His voice drops to a raging growl. “If she dares touch you, even looks in your direction, I will hold her life in my hands at last and take her soul from Azure, sending it straight to the darkest place possible where she deserves to rest for eternity.”
“She has a right to mourn her brother!” My head shakes, my brows narrowing deeply inward. “This isn’t like you.”
“This is exactly like me, Spark. You just haven’t seen my dark side.”
Spark.
I clench my eyes, my mind racing with the images I once saw. Are they real? Or are the Gods playing a trick on me?
“The descendants of the Gods always feel as if they’re untouchable. Just because you Royals are the Fallen Embers of our Gods, protected by them with your Vitaei water and ability to live longer than the rest of us, doesn’t mean death can’t come sooner for you all.”
“Are you bringing this up again?” Koen snarls. “Dixyn chose dark magic over staying here with you… that is not my fault. If he truly loved you, he would have stayed! You can’t blame that on me!”
“You are the one that brought him there! I can’t believe his brother, Theon, didn’t stop him, or you.” Her lips curl with a wicked twist. “How could you let him go!”
My heart skips as I catch sight of Koen’s nostrils flaring.
My eyes flicker between the two of them, watching the storm rage inside them as if they are both ready to blow at any moment.
But the words Klayra said. Theon having a brother. I had never heard him speak of this. Fallen embers. Descendants. Words I have never heard from the brothers. Nor Theon and Kaine.
I take a deep breath as I catch Klayra’s silver eyes flickering with a soft hazel hue around her cornea, but they burn with rage as the blade drips Koen's blood at her feet.
The sight of it sets my heart into a violent, deadly rate, pumping a raging fire throughout me as I lock onto the blood dripping from his hand.
And that pisses me off.
Something inside me shifts.
I hate him. Damn it, yes I hate him.
But, my heart beats for him.
My teeth clench tightly, staring at the blood slowly dripping repeatedly.
What the hell is wrong with these people? The bloodshed. The violence. The betrayals. Damn it, what did this curse do to them?
Even though I have a burning hatred for him that sears through my heart, he has always felt different to me, a feeling I have yet to feel in all my years.
I deeply care for him, and even if I haven’t screamed it out loud to this Realm, my heart has been screaming this for quite some time now.
I cannot deny it. It overrides any of my other senses, making me feel as if I have gone mad, and I don't believe those feelings can ever fade away.
Especially with seeing the beauty of him… everyday. Maybe once I leave, those feelings will soon be erased. How I hope for that.
The Gods didn’t listen to me when I begged them not to fall in love.
“Koen… please let me take care of this.” I go to reach for his shoulder, but pause, my heart seizing as it falls back to my side. “I am the one that got me in this mess, I can finish it. You don’t have to protect me.”
“Yeah.” Klayra’s plush lips curl upward. “Listen to your little killer. She can protect herself.”
“She is no killer,” he growls, the sound mixing with a sudden deranged voice. “She is nothing like you.”
Klayra rubs her hand across her nose after picking the dagger up, his blood still stained against the silver blade. “Ah, are you still butt hurt about losing Roiyland?” she teases, her lips tugging into a vile grin. “She was never going to survive that year. She was weak. I smelt it on her.”
Who the hell is Roiyland?
My body begins to heat, feeling fire tickle against my fingertips as they continue to scream at each other here at the Pyre.
I heave, my throat constricting as a fear I have felt this whole time might be true.
I don’t know Koen. I don’t know the darkness that he holds.
I will never know the women he holds at night, or kisses under the stars.
And one thing is for certain, now that will never be me.
And that breaks me.
That fumes the rage inside me.
“You had no right deciding her fate!” Koen bellows, veins swelling against his neck and temples. “The Gods determine when it is our time to face them, not yours!”
“And you believe…” She points the sharp blade towards me, her eyes gleaming into a wicked narrow slit. “She has the right to decide?”
“It was an accident!” Florian interjects. “We… she had no idea her abilities would be more powerful than anything that we have seen in the written ways of Azure.”
“Oh, we are bringing up the written way of our Gods now, are we? How cute,” she scuffs, rolling her eyes as the chosen begin to walk our way.
I hesitantly stumble backwards, my chest rising and falling, trying to control all of the thoughts that are running wild inside me.
Octavian warned me not to create a scene, to stay hidden, but it's the same as the dormitory. I can never hide from who I am.
“Is it true?” The man from the sea nods his head, crossing his arms.“She can burn those who touch her to ash?”
Koen glances over his shoulder towards me, his curls hiding my favorite feature of him… his eyes. “It is, Zake.”
He utters the words, voice almost dropping to a whisper, and as he brushes the curls away from his face, I melt as I catch sight of the emerald hues dancing in his eyes.
But they are soft. They aren’t sparked with life as I used to see, but now are shadowed with regret.
They almost seem to plead for a different world, one where the truth of what he had just spoken does not exist.
Yet, it does.
This is now, this is real, and it’s breaking me.
Zake’s brows pull upward. “We have been warned not to trust the woman who bears that curse.”
“It isn’t a curse!” Florian hisses, moving his body in front of me as we both catch sight of Zake ripping his blades out. “What you have been told is wrong!”
Ivker’s mechanical arm holds a sword from their training, tossing his auburn hair behind his shoulder in preparation to attack… me.
Truthfully, Ivker scares the shit out of me.
“Get behind me.” Florian’s eyes darken. “If anything goes wrong, you run.”
I nod, almost tripping on the log behind us.
A deep, guttural roar erupts from the Klayra’s throat, cutting through the air as I catch sight of her attempting to jab Koen in the side, but he blocks it with his dagger just as fast. Their eyes lock as Koen’s lips pull into a smirk.
“Are you sure about this?” he teases.
She grunts, yanking the dagger away. “I’ve waited a century for this moment, dark one. You will regret what you have done.”
Koen scuffs. “As you will regret what you have done.”
Their arms flail with a violent rhythm as they clash, each desperately trying to avoid the other's sharp daggers.
The sounds of their arms colliding with one another is mixed in with their breaths, filled with a desire to end each other's lives.
Each lunge, each groan, makes my heart beat erratically.
I can end this. I can stop this.
Klayra cries out in agony, flinching when Koen stabs her thigh with a dagger and yanks it out swiftly.
Her blood, a vivid red, spatters onto the gravel as Koen kicks her leg, causing her to lose her footing and crash to the ground.
Particles of white dirt cling to her teal hair, and Koen presses his foot against her chest. Despite her attempts to rise, he holds her down with the weight of his boot.
“Had enough?”
She snatches the blade that was hidden in the dirt, driving it fiercely into Koen’s leg. The sharp pain jolts him, providing her the opportunity to shove him aside.
“Koen!” I scream out.
“Blood for blood!” Klayra wails. “And I will grant her the same death as my brother’s!
” Her eyes blaze with such an intense, fiery determination that it feels as though she might combust. She is consumed by the sheer rage coursing through her veins.
She won’t stop until my ashes float in the air like her brother.
“Get away from him!” I cry out, my eyes blurring.
I can end this. Damn it, I can burn them all.