Chapter 1
Petra
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. ” What a silly, inadequate fucking word, a meaningless incantation I chanted as if it were a prayer that could save me from the Darkness Beyond.
I felt the sensation of running. No, I was sprinting.
Air rushed over what should’ve been my face.
There was an undeniable burning sensation where my chest should’ve been.
I could see and feel no physical form, felt none of the weight of the armor that I’d been wearing in the moments before I fell into nothingness.
I hadn’t the slightest clue of what I was running toward, but I knew what I was running from.
“Welcome to the Darkness Beyond.”
Lord Evarius Castemont. Behind the gold and glory and finery of an Eserenian lord had been a snake, coiled in the tall grass, ready to sink his fangs into me.
Malosym. Leader of the Occulti.
“ Fuck ,” I ground out through gritted teeth. Was he following me? Could he follow me here ?
Something chittered behind me, the high-pitched noise echoing through the darkness.
My bodiless form lurched forward as my steps faltered and I hit the ground.
Shit . Shit . Shit. The chittering was louder now, closer, my hands clawing aimlessly for something to grab onto, anything to help me find my way upright.
The sensation of ground beneath my feet found me once again and I was running, pushing, flailing through this place in search of an escape.
“Katia? Rhedros?” I screamed into the pitch black, in search of the beings who’d given me life. Somewhere in this void, in this chasm of nothingness, they waited, imprisoned.
“She’s here,” someone, some thing answered, whining and hissing like a chorus of mangled, choking whispers. I had no body and yet I could taste the metallic tang of fear, feel the skin at the back of my neck prickle with the feeling I was being watched.
I needed… I needed something. I didn’t know what. A way out of this darkness to anywhere else but here.
The voices were closer this time as they repeated, “She’s here.”
I yelped as something shot by my head, so close it skimmed my cheek.
My hand flailed out to cast a bolt of fire in its direction, but not even a spark shone in the darkness.
Still, I tried, as if maybe I could scrape up enough power from my barren veins to cast one shot.
Maybe desperation was flammable and terror could be the fuel.
But it wasn’t enough, and all I could do was sprint into the wide open maw of oblivion, praying it would eventually lead me somewhere.
Anywhere but here. Anywhere but here. Anywhere but the Darkness Beyond.
There was an emptiness inside me that had opened the moment Umbri sacrificed my powers back in Blindbarrow.
Even now, I felt the same fear, the same dread that gripped me when I watched the Bloodsinger throw the vial of my blood against the wall, heard the glass shatter and the sound of my blood fizzling in the candle’s flame, rendering me powerless.
The walls of that emptiness ached without my power to hold them in place, threatening to fall without their very foundation.
The gnawing pain was so much worse here in the Darkness Beyond than it had been in the Human Realm, the loss so much more profound.
“Hello?” I screamed again. “Katia! Rhedros! Where are you?”
They had to be here somewhere. This is where they said they were imprisoned, right?
In the Darkness Beyond? But I received no answer to my call, only the unmistakable click of talons snapping behind me.
I pushed impossibly harder, ran impossibly faster, careened through the darkness as I prayed to be anywhere but here.
Please, anywhere but here!
And suddenly, I was. I was somewhere else.
But the relief I felt was short-lived, quickly replaced by the sensation of falling. I had a body now — arms and hands and legs and feet that all flailed and thrashed as I tried to make sense of which way was up and which way was down and where the fuck I was and–
Darkness, once again.
◆ ◆ ◆
“She’s breathing!” a voice called frantically. “Holy shit! She’s breathing!”
A distant part of me began to rouse, one that had been sleeping since the last time I heard that voice. Another me in another life had known it well, almost as well as my own.
“How did she get here?” another voice asked. I knew that voice too, but not as well as the first. It was fresher in my mind, though.
“I have no idea. I don’t think she came through the Gates. ”
There was a hammer inside my skull pounding away behind my eyes — eyes I couldn’t open. In fact, I couldn’t seem to coordinate my movements enough to do anything besides breathe.
My lungs filled with the overwhelming scent of flowers, like an entire garden had been planted in my chest. Birds sang out around me, their songs sweet but unfamiliar. Somewhere nearby was the unmistakable sound of gentle waves rippling against a sandy shore.
“ Fuck . What do we do?” the first voice asked. Female. And familiar .
With more effort than it should’ve taken, I pried my eyes open to blinding light, completely white at first. But as I blinked, it softened and yellowed.
Sunlight? Sure felt like it. A gasp sounded from somewhere above me.
My headache ebbed slightly as I willed the world to come into focus, to discern the silhouette that I could now tell was crouching over me.
“Thank the Saints ,” the silhouette said, throwing her arms around my neck and pulling me to sit. I knew the feel of those arms around me. I knew that lean, muscled body.
My chest hollowed and seemed to collapse inward as I struggled to take in a breath. This wasn't real. It was impossible. It was–
“Larka?”
“Hi,” she said, her familiar face beaming as she pulled away to look at me, her expression turning solemn. “Are you hurt?”
The world spun around me — no, that was just my mind whirring in an attempt to make sense of what I was looking at.
Who I was looking at. I rubbed my eyes so hard, light flashed behind my lids, and I was sure they would wipe away this vision and present reality to me once again.
But I opened my eyes to see the exact same thing I’d been looking at when I closed them. Larka . I was staring at Larka.
“You’re…alive?” I stammered .
“Yes. I miraculously survived getting speared through the throat with a flaming board then exploding in a fiery inferno,” she quipped. “No, silly. I’m dead. Very dead.”
I rubbed my eyes again, so vigorously this time it hurt. I was going to open them and be back in the Darkness Beyond. This was a joke. A cruel one, at that.
“Rub your eyes all you want, Petra, but it’s me.”
I dropped my fists, staring back at Larka. “What the fuck?” I finally asked, unable to find more eloquent words to ask her…what the fuck?
“I knew you were going to say that,” Larka said, turning to the woman standing behind her. “Didn’t I tell you she was going to say that?”
My eyes fell on…
“Elin?” I gasped.
She lowered her head, bending her knees slightly. “Your Majesty.”
A barely concealed laugh sputtered from Larka’s lips. All I could do was stare at my sister. My eyes were so wide, I was sure they were going to pop right out of my head. She was here, in the flesh, and she was…laughing at me.
“Elin told me about your, um, journey.” Her voice was mocking, lined with a giggle, and had it been anyone else speaking, it would’ve grated on me. But it was her, it was Larka, my sister. My sister.
Elin gave a polite smile. “I told her all I know, but I’m sure there’s a lot I left out. I remember bits and pieces here and there, though. Even now.” At my face that now somehow looked even more confused, Elin added, “It’s been about a year since I arrived at the Gates.”
“A year? But the battle only ended–”
“A few minutes ago,” she cut in. “Yep. Time passes differently here. Takes a bit, but you’ll get used to it. ”
My sister’s fist landed a light punch against my arm, drawing my attention back to her. “You couldn’t’ve made yourself a queen while I was still alive? Some sister you are.”
She stared at me expectantly, as if I could form a complete sentence right now. I couldn’t even form a complete thought. How? How was she here? And…
Where was here ? I managed to tear my eyes away from my sister and take in the scene around us.
The sun shone brightly on a garden bursting with blooms in every shape and size and color.
My hands flexed in grass so velvet soft I could curl up and drift off to sleep in it.
The meadow bordered a powdery white beach, the cerulean blue waves that lapped against the sand so vibrant, it looked like a painting.
The water expanded all the way to the horizon, gleaming like Eserenian crystals in the sunlight.
Behind us was a cabin with a front porch wide enough for a small table and set of chairs.
The windows were open, the edges of white curtains ruffling lightly in the breeze.
Before I could ask Larka where we were, her face turned up in that beautiful smile I’d always been so envious of. “Would you believe that even with all the shit I did in life, I still made it to Heaven?”