Rise at Twilight
Page 27
“You are still capable of redemption if you are willing to work for it.”
“R-redemption?” she asked, looking up into the blackness of the sky. The belief that there could be any cleansing for her soul came as both a relief and a shock. Some things tainted black can never be cleansed again. She thought herself to be the same way.
“I believe in redemption for those who are pure of heart. You have been misled and poisoned by black magic, blood magic, darkness that not even I can take away,” Morpheus said.
“But it’s not all their fault,” Luna said, feeling her bottom lip tremble. “I made my own decisions, I did my own…I did…” She couldn’t finish the sentence, instead staring down at her hands. They were small and delicate, her fingers long and frail. She had beautiful hands, but when she turned them over, and looked at the lines in her palms, the creases in the joints of her fingers, they were ugly. All too well the feeling of the blood in those creases came to her.
“That might be, but I’m willing to put that all in the past. I am willing to give you a second chance.”
The words were the most beautiful song she had ever heard. She repeated them in her head. A second chance. A second chance. A second chance. It was everything she had asked for and then some. A shot at redemption would mean earning her son back. Even without those words being said, both of them had an understanding that that was what it meant.
“Even after everything I’ve done? I…I…I killed one of your…” She couldn’t finish the sentence, her mind replaying Amy’s betrayed eyes as Luna stole the life from her friend. Brief flashes of lying in the bed next to her friend’s dead body came next and those weren’t so easy to push away.
“They are all trials,” Morpheus repeated.
Luna bit her lip, staring down at her hands again. It would be so easy to say yes, to make all the pain go away, to pretend that she was deserving of redemption, but she wasn’t. Not really. Like Max had said, like Sarah had said, she had changed. After all, she had woken up in Chance’s stretch of the woods. She had lived with him, knowing what kind of monster he was, she hadn’t killed him when she had had the opportunity.
She might’ve been a victim at one point in her life, but she had also been a perpetrator, and that was not so easy for her to forget. She thought of the life she had stolen from Amy again along with her own mother. Was there even a way to redeem yourself for betraying people who loved you, people who trusted you?
Luna didn’t know, but Morpheus seemed to. He was offering it, wasn’t he?
Still, that tug of unease loomed in Luna’s stomach. She was used to people lying to her, used to people twisting the truth in just the right way so that it served their purpose, whatever that would be. A God would have no reason to lie. If she could trust anyone to be honest with her, it would be an ethereal being…right?
“Well, Luna, what do you say?” Morpheus rumbled.
The fireflies began to spark around her, not leading anywhere this time, just creating a circle around her as if they were encouraging her to stay, encouraging her to keep on this new path she had somehow stumbled on.
Their lights became more frantic, their movements more noticeable as more appeared, hundreds upon hundreds of fireflies, darting in and out of the long blades of grass and swirling through the dark sky. Luna’s eyes sparkled with their light, and she stared into them, imaging them to be the very face of the God that she spoke to.
“Yes,” she said at last. “Yes.”
Epilogue
RUTH, THE FIFTY-YEAR-OLD neighbor well known for her hobby of sticking her nose where it didn’t belong, cowered in her home, listening to the sounds of pained screams and anguish coming from the next door over. Her eyes were wide, but she couldn’t force herself to move, telling herself that it was nothing, that the sounds were in her head though her instincts told her something was going down, something much worse than a weekend party.
For once, she kept her distance, unsure if she really wanted to involve herself in the drama or not. Then it went silent. Where there had been anguish, there was now nothing. After everything Ruth had heard, the sound of nothing was worse because it meant the other noises had been real, that something had happened, and whatever it had been was over. With shaking fingers, she picked up her phone and dialed 911, speaking in a rushed voice of noises and pain. It seemed as if the cops arrived before she even finished the call. Ruth rushed outside, to the edge of her lawn, hand to her mouth as she watched the uniform officers swarm up to the door.
They pounded with the side of their fist, announcing their names and titles, but when no one answered, they looked at one another before finally breaking the door on its hinges to rush inside. When they disappeared into the darkness of the arc, the EMTs appeared in a squealing ambulance, the lights and sounds drawing out the rest of the neighbors who hadn’t already been aware that something was wrong.
Just as the first of the EMT’s climbed out of the ambulance and hurried inside, two of the officers stepped outside, one of them hunched over as if he had seen something truly awful. As the rest of the neighborhood converged outside, some of them getting close enough to ask the police questions, Ruth couldn’t keep herself away and drifted closer as well.
“Three dead,” the cop said into his radio. “It’s a bloodbath.”
“Out of the way!” the EMT barked at him from the shadows.
The cop moved at the sight of the stretcher and the bloody girl on it.
“She’s got a pulse,” the second EMT said.
Ruth held a hand to her heart as she watched them load the girl onto the ambulance.
“Oh, save that poor child!” she said, eyes volleying between the ambulance as it rushed away and the house where two dead bodies still waited inside.
A Note from the Author
Dear Reader,
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to pick my book out of the millions upon billions on the market. And thank you even more for finishing it to the end.
If you’ve enjoyed my book, I’d truly appreciate if you’d spend one more minute of your time on me and leave a review. To us authors, reviews are life and death since they help us to get better exposure so other readers like you can find us in the vast sea of literature <3
Reanimate at Dawn (Rituals of the Night #5)
Dying is easy. Coming back is much harder.
After being murdered by her rival, Chance Welfrey, Luna thought she would be forced to live forever in Purgatory. After being offered a deal by Morpheus, the God of Dreams, Luna is given a second chance at life. Back on Earth, she can’t speak due to the healing injuries that killed her, and she finds herself in police custody as the primary suspect in the murder of her friend, Amy and mother, Rose.
Luna isn’t the only one to make a miraculous recovery.
With the help of Cody and his compound, Chance is also given a second shot at life using ex-Keeper Reese as a vessel. Tasked with his own mission to stop Luna from succeeding and to find the perfect vessel for Epiales, the God of Nightmares, Chance and Luna will once again partake in a deadly game of cat and mouse.
Except this time, the consequences could bring about the end of the world.
About The Author
Kayla Krantz is a proud author, responsible for a number of fantasy novels, and is fascinated by the dark and macabre. Stephen King is her all-time inspiration, mixed in with a little bit of Eminem and some faint remnants of the works of Edgar Allen Poe. When she began writing, she started in horror, but somehow drifted into thriller and fantasy. She loves the 1988 movie, “Heathers.” Kayla was born and raised in Michigan, but traveled across the country to where she currently resides, in Texas.
facebook.com/kaylakrantzwriter
authorkaylakrantz.com
twitter.com/kaylathewriter9
Other Works By This Author
The Council
(The Witch's Ambitions Trilogy Book One)
The Council is the governing Coven o
ver the Land of Five, a region entirely inhabited—and split apart—by witches with varying powers. Lilith Lace, a witch thought to be born powerless, happily resides in Ignis, the Coven of Fire, until she suddenly develops telekinesis, an ability only seen in some witches born in Mentis, the Coven of the Mind. When The Council finds out about her odd development, she's taken under their wing and is finally told the truth—everything she's learned about the Land of Five, herself included, has been nothing but lies.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
Rise at Twilight
Copyright@2019 Kayla Krantz
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews—without written permission by the publisher.
Cover by James Price
Edited by InfinityxCreations
First Edition October 2019
Table of Contents
Rise at Twilight
Kayla Krantz
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Rituals of the Night Series
Prologue
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
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Epilogue
A Note from the Author
Reanimate at Dawn (Rituals of the Night #5)
About The Author
Other Works By This Author