Chapter One
Kiara
The sun hasn’t risen in days, and the people have begun to panic. I fear that if the sun and its goddess don’t return, the world as we know it will delve deeper into the shadows.
Letter from Admiral Liand to King Brion,
year 1 of the curse
Few people knew that the night spoke.
Even fewer knew how to answer when it did.
Right then, it was taunting me. The hissing winds and the bloodred moon caused the hair on the back of my neck to rise, the crimson halo an omen of the cruel grief that would soon reach into my chest and make a home there.
A curse rumbled up my throat, drowned out by Liam’s relentless snores across our shared room. Nothing could wake that boy, not even one of my colorful curses that turned Mother’s ears red.
It was nearly morning, the telltale twittering of a starwing filtering through my cracked window. Some said starwings were the gods’ spies, but I believed they were only birds, nothing more.
One of the creatures hopped onto my windowsill, its black feathers shimmering with speckles of purple, its downy underbelly a vibrant blue. It stared at me with its dark, beady eyes before taking flight, its melodious song trailing behind.
Apparently, I wasn’t anyone worth spying on.
I returned my attention to my lap, my favorite dagger resting in my gloved hand.
As I twirled the handle, I cursed Raina, our glorious and forgotten Sun Goddess. If she hadn’t left us to rot in the night, then today wouldn’t be happening.
Liam wouldn’t be taken. Not by them—
The damned Knights of the Eternal Star.
They’d sweep into our village and steal all eligible boys, forcing them to journey into the cursed lands—into the Mist. A place where no mortal would dare venture. After the Goddess Raina had left, the Mist had risen up like an incurable malady, and our arrogant king had been fighting for a cure ever since. With crops failing, and people starving, he was working against time to produce a solution. A solution he believed could be found where death bloomed.
I just thought him to be a fool.
Hope is a dangerous thing to possess.
“Do you ever sleep?”
I jerked against my headboard as Liam’s long lashes fluttered open, his twin pools of blue eyeing me skeptically in the dim.
“No,” I answered, flicking a match on the bedside table and reaching for the candle. The wick caught flame instantly, and Liam let out another grunt when the light hit his eyes.
“I already miss my bed.” Liam groaned.
“You’re still in bed.” I chuckled, though it was strained. My red tresses brushed my cheeks as I shook my head.
“What time is it, Ki?”
While the mood was dour, it was impossible to stop the grin forming on my lips.
Ki, the nickname Liam had gifted me with when he was little and couldn’t say my full name, suited me like a fine leather coat, whereas Kiara sounded too…well, not me. Feminine and dainty. A girl with blooms woven into her hair and lips that fashioned pretty words. I was neither dainty nor well-spoken. Not that I ever wished to be.
My eyes drifted to the whirring timepiece beside my cot. “Around six.”
“Gods, why must people insist upon waking at such a depraved hour?” Liam tugged the linens tighter, swaddled like a newborn babe.
“Of course you would say that. You’d be stuck in that bed all day if not for me nagging at you to get off your bum.” Bounding across the cold planks, I catapulted onto his mattress with a defiant grin, the hinges beneath me squeaking in protest.
“Ki!” Liam griped, his scrawny body trapped below mine. He was a foot taller than my five feet two, but what I lacked in height, I made up for with solid muscle. Muscle I’d worked very hard to attain. The various bruises and scars dotting my body attested to that.
“Liammmmmm,” I trilled, holding him in place while my fingers ruthlessly tickled his side. “Waaaake uuuuup.” A squeal escaped his thin lips, his cheeks rosy with laughter.
The delightfully high-pitched sounds only fueled my merciless fingers.
“Ki, stop! I mean it!” Liam laughed so hard a snort slipped out, and my riotous cackles added to his.
“You’re no fun.” I sighed, pulling back to allow him room to breathe. Rocking back on my knees, I surveyed my brother, committing this moment to memory. But when my eyes fell to his chest, I tensed.
“I… I’m sorry, Liam,” I whispered, all the glee sucked from my lungs.
His chest rose and fell in uneven and strained movements, a slight rasp lining each
shaking breath.
“It’s fine.” He smiled, but I didn’t miss how his lips twitched at the corners.
“No, it’s not. I shouldn’t have been so careless. Not when you had another attack only two days ago.”
Inhaling and exhaling with practiced care, Liam sought my eyes, his hand wrapping around mine. I hadn’t felt his touch in over a decade, the leather encasing my fingers blocking his warmth. “Seriously. I’m okay. Though, you’re still a pain in my ass.”
“I’ll delight in being a pain as long as you keep breathing.” I scowled, fumbling to remove myself from the bed and smoothing down my simple black shift. I really should have known better.
“You can brew a pot of coffee to make it up to me,” he crooned, the spark back in his eyes.
“Fine. But only because I nearly killed you.” I grinned while Liam shook his head. I wasn’t at all surprised when he threw a pillow at my back on my way out.
Tiptoeing into the kitchen, I went about boiling the water over the hearth, the single sunfire sconce casting a honeyed glow across thin wooden walls. Mined from the Rine Mountains in the north, the rare gems radiated golden yellow light. They cost a handful of silver each, and we were lucky enough to own one in our humble home.
I peered down at the brewing coffee, knowing it wouldn’t help my nerves…even if it smelled divine.
What I needed was to train with Uncle Micah. My mother’s older brother showed up in Cila mere days after the grisly attack that forced me to don the gloves I never removed. At the time, I’d been half alive, half cognizant, and there he was, a stranger that insisted he would train me to defend myself. He’d barely introduced himself before gazing at my hands and shaking his head at what he saw.
“We start tomorrow,” he’d snapped, and it was only because of my grandmother’s pleading that I listened. Supposedly, she’d been the one to implore him to come. With the entire village aware of what occurred, I would’ve become a target to more than ridicule. The attack was no ordinary one, and suspicion would inevitably follow me everywhere.
I hated Micah most days, but months turned into years, and those clandestine lessons became like a salve for the budding anger living just beneath my skin.
Today, on the day of the Calling, I’d never needed Micah more.
But there would be no sparring today, no knives and bloodied fists. No curses and sweat. Swallowing the need to lash out at some poor inanimate object, I curled my fingers around the handles of two steaming mugs as I crept across the groaning planks and back to our room.
Shoving inside, I thrust the cup into Liam’s outstretched hands. “Here, you heathen.”
All I received in thanks was an eye roll, and then he practically inhaled the scalding liquid, his eyes shut in content glee.
“Have I told you lately that you’re a decent sister?” he asked when he came up for air.
A compliment? How unusual.
“You could tell me more often. It wouldn’t hurt.” My shoulders rose in a playful shrug before I indulged from my own cup. The liquid sloshed around the rim, its warm bitterness wetting my lips.
Liam downed an impressive gulp before setting the mug on the bedside table, the wood covered in faint rings from all the other times he’d never used a coaster. I could picture Mother’s narrowed eyes now.
“Kiara,” he began cautiously, and my stomach swelled with ice. “I know what today will bring. There’s no need to avoid it.” I was planning on avoiding it for as long as humanly possible. “I am prepared to leave. I’ve already said my goodbyes.”
To his friends. Our neighbors. His soon-to-be-former life.
“I love you, Liam.”
If my words moved him, he didn’t let on. He merely grunted before retrieving his mug, gripping it until his knuckles shone white. Maybe he did so out of
awkwardness. Or shock. I love you. I’d never spoken those words aloud.
He knew full well why I uttered them today.
“And I love you, Ki.” His throat bobbed, as did mine.
Moments passed, hushed yet comfortable, neither of us daring to speak. I sensed Liam’s affection wash over me from across the room, and I prayed he felt what my heart couldn’t bear to speak.
That was enough. It had to be.
“Ki—”
Thundering hoofbeats halted whatever he’d planned on saying.
Lights flickered across the village, gleaming yellows casting a hazy glow about the streets, a few pale sunfires dotting the blur of burnt orange.
Liam’s eyes hardened to steel. “It appears as though my time has run out.” ...
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