The Emperor's Daughter

by H M Angues

  He knows Calla won’t be coming back. And he’s all right with that. The empire comes first. Calla comes first. Always.

  Ramsey steps closer, her breath on my face, making me squirm on the inside from discomfort. Her hands find my face, my neck, and I’d tremble under her touch if I wasn’t paralyzed.

  “Talking to your little mate? How sweet. Oh, and how lovely it will be when she comes running to save you, only to find her own death waiting for her.” The smile that curls across her flawless face is malicious, her eyes thirsty for the emperor's blood. The deep black hand around my neck tightens its grip.

  “Tell her to come back here, or I destroy you. Do you know how much it hurts for someone to lose their Flame? Most would prefer death.”

  I still have control of my eyes—I squeeze them shut.

  I think about Talon and Bellamy, who haven’t had nearly as much time with their sister as they need. I think about Ryse. I’ve made so many mistakes along the way, with my little brother most of all. I should have done more, I shouldn’t have abandoned him. I’m partially to blame for the horrible traits he’s grown into.

  I should have told Calla I loved her a long time ago, rather than waiting until so recently. I should have told Bellamy and Blade and Talon that I care about them, too. That everything I’ve done was to protect them, even if only Talon and Calla would believe it. I should have told Rysen how much he means to me.

  I think about that day in Drakonis, after Calla’s big argument with Ryse. I think about how it felt to hold her in my arms, close to my chest. I long for more chances, but I know it wouln't matter how many opportunities I could have had to hold her. It would never be enough.

  I love you, Calla.

  For Talon. For Bellamy. For Blade. For Ryse. For the closest thing to a family I have ever had, even if some of them hated me along the way.

  But, most of all, for the woman I call home. For Calla Daiena Renald, the love of my life. The Phoenix, destined to save us all.

  Chapter 38

  Calla

  The world around me fades from existence.

  There is nothing except the excruciating pain in my chest, like someone blew a hole through the center of my heart. As if someone punched their fist into my sternum and wrenched out the still-beating organ with their bare hand.

  I love you, Calla.

  Then he was gone. Just like that.

  My brain feels shredded in his absence, like someone hacked at the tissue to sever the mating bond.

  Everything around me moves in slow motion. Talon running toward me, horror twisting his face. Rysen sinking to his knees. Bellamy struggling to reach me with her injured ankle. Blade pulling me into his chest from behind, his arms cinched tightly around my torso. Syn and Jeriko kissing their right fists and raising them; a Primori gesture performed when one of their own dies.

  I start screaming and crying out at the pain, though I can’t hear a thing. Sound returns gradually. First, a ringing in my ears. Then, Blade's deep voice as he whispers soothing tones into my ear and strokes my hair with a gentle hand. Rysen sinking to the floor in disbelief as Talon explains what’s happening. Bellamy groaning, unable to do much more than observe.

  I don’t know how much time passes. All I know is pain.

  I love you, Calla.

  I never loved him back. Not the way he loved me.

  He was in pain because of me.

  And now he’s dead, his last memories of the pain I caused him.

  ∞∞∞

  I stare at the face of Darinthe Manor. I can vaguely recall shifting into Shade-form, slipping out of Blade's grasp, and transporting myself here. I don’t know why I never thought of doing so before, but the sheer distance was enough to almost drain me of energy entirely.

  I don’t care. I push forward.

  She isn’t here, but someone else is. Someone else arrived here just moments ago.

  A flash of light is all it takes for me to disappear. The guards patrolling the grounds and the halls and the massive rooms pay me no mind as I stride through the manor as if it were my own. Invisible. Aurora.

  Fayette is pacing in the master bedroom that takes up the entire third floor. She’s changed into more elegant clothes. Clothes fit for a queen.

  But not any queen. Ramsey’s queen.

  I make myself visible, standing in the center of the magnificent bedroom that my former friend now shares with my greatest enemy. Fayette jolts, taken by surprise.

  “How did you know I—”

  “When you snuck out of your apartment to talk to her. I’m a Shade, dear. I lurk in the shadows.”

  “You knew? You followed me?” she gasps.

  “You betrayed me.”

  Her face contorts with anger. “I betrayed you? Ha! You’re the one who stole Blade from me.”

  I can’t fight the cold laughter that erupts from my throat. “That’s what this is about? You betray your emperor and your father to get revenge over Blade dumping you? Pathetic, Fay. Though I supposed I should have expected it from you. You were always weak.”

  She scoffs. “You were supposed to die, but that’s all right. Kainan is dead, and I know it will destroy you like watching everyone I ever loved worship you destroyed me. We’re even.”

  I narrow my eyes, rage boiling beneath my skin. Fayette cowers away from me, slinking backward until she’s pressed against the wall. I close the gap, my nose almost touching hers.

  “Your eyes,” she mutters with a shaky voice.

  “Red? Yes, it’s interesting, isn’t it? They change. It unsettles you, seeing Ramsey's eyes in my own. I wonder,” I muse, skimming through her thoughts and memories like a book, “how Ramsey will feel once I am done with you. Oh, she cares for you, dear Fayette. I think it may even be love, if she's capable of such a thing.

  “I hope it hurts her as much as this hurts you. Do you know what it felt like to lose him, Fayette?”

  The metal cuff on my wrist melts and reshapes into my sword, the hilt familiar in my palm. She isn't quick enough to react. I carve through bone and flesh and sinew. Fayette sucks in her final breath.

  I cut her heart out, holding the organ in my hands. A gruesome sight I must be.

  “That is how it felt,” I whisper.

  I toss her corpse aside and burn her flesh to ash, leaving just her lifeless heart intact. It’s a monstrous and cruel thing to do, but so was killing Kainan and taking everything from me.

  It’s hardly enough to make us even.

  As I walk through the front doors, Darinthe Manor is struck by my own storm. Lightning pounds the structure, and an earthquake rattles the foundation. The manor crumbles behind me, burying my enemy’s murdered lover and my former friend in the rubble. My gift for Ramsey.

  Call it even? I tell her with all my rage and fury exploding into the telepathic realm, with hope that she feels every bit of it.

  ∞∞∞

  When I return to Jurynn, my companions are in Jed’s bunker. The Overseer is still alive. Talon throws a dirty sheet over a motionless corpse on the floor. It’s not one of the soldiers I had killed.

  Kainan.

  I step over to his body, sitting down beside his covered head. I don’t care that everyone is watching. I pull aside the blanket and lay my hand over his heart. I burn his corpse to ash right there, in that moment. No one says a word as the fire crackles and glows, the scent of burning flesh filling our noses.

  Someone kneels down behind me, their fingers clasping my shoulder. Talon.

  “Where did you go?” he asks. “You just... vanished.”

  I feel his gaze trail down to my bloody arm.

  The realization of what I did slams into me like a heavily armored tank. I scramble on my hands and knees to the corner of the room and my stomach empties itself on the blood-stained carpet. My brother strokes my hair, pulling the long curls out of my face.

  “I killed her,” I whimper. “I tore her heart right out of her chest.”

  Rysen folds his arms acro
ss his chest as Blade comes to my side, clasping his hand around mine. “Killed who?”

  “Someone I once considered a friend.”

  “Who, Calla?”

  “Fayette.”

  I expect them to flinch away, but Blade tightens his grip on my fingers. Talon pulls me close to him, wrapping his arms around me tenderly.

  He doesn’t say a word. Jed just looks at me with his good, unmarred eye, his features expressionless. I killed his daughter. The little infant he had taken from an orphanage all those years ago. The girl who had been my friend for much of my life. I had trusted her. I had loved and cared for her like a sister.

  And how did she repay that love? By selling us out and starting the chain of events that led to Blade's capture. To my death. To Kainan’s death.

  I catch the look on Blade’s face; his eyes narrow, lips forming a flat line across his face. He isn’t surprised. “She was a traitor,” he states curtly. “Ryse said he and Kainan were just starting to figure it out before...” his voice waivers. “Anyway, they believe she’s been Ramsey’s anonymous source, feeding her information about Drakonis, Ragnar, and Jurynn.”

  I nod, looking up to meet all of their gazes. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  Rage boils behind that tenderness in Blade’s eyes. He kiss the top of my head, never letting go of my hand. “Don’t apologize. If the roles were reversed, if you were dead again… I would have done a lot worse, Cal.”

  I get to my feet, walking back to Kainan's remains. The fire dies, ashes are all that are left in its wake.

  In his last few seconds, he had broadcast everything he was feeding into my thoughts. How he cared for not only Ryse and me—but for Bellamy, Blade, and Talon as well. Everything he had done was for us.

  It makes the pain that much worse. “You should have let me save you,” I whisper.

  Blade touches my arm. There are tears in his eyes. “We should go.”

  “Now, where do you propose we go? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the only major Underground facilities have been destroyed or are currently under Ramsey’s control,” Jed points out, folding his arms across his chest.

  “The surface. The Provinces. She expects us to stay underground because, well, we’re the Underground,” I reply, slowly regaining my composure, latching onto the distraction. “But what about hiding in plain sight? We still have the hangars and the armories that are below the surface—if we go there, we run the risk of Ramsey finding and destroying those, too. So, we hide in the cities, travel from Province to Province.”

  “We can do more than that,” Jed divulges. “The people still think their emperor is dead. We show them that you aren’t, and we give them something to rally behind.”

  “We start our own uprising,” Blade says, catching on.

  ∞∞∞

  It takes a couple days to get everyone out of Jurynn. We scatter our forces, sending people across all seven Provinces and the Capital to hide in the crowds and collect information. As well as incite rebellion.

  My family owns a summer home in Morda, bordering the lake just outside the Province’s capital city. It’s small and well-hidden—hardly anyone knows it even exists, and those that stumble across it by chance usually assume it to be a wealthy citizen’s lake house.

  That’s where I go, along with Talon and Bellamy, Syn and Jeriko, Valek and Jed, Blade and Ryse. They’re all that’s left of my family.

  The large cabin-like estate is nestled in the Mordan woods on the west side of Lake Daiena, just north of what's left of Jurynn. My father had bought this place for my mother from the cousin of the Province’s king as a wedding gift, subsequently renaming the lake after her.

  I pause just before the front door, gazing into the manor’s foyer, decorated with warm and cozy furnishings. Photographs and paintings of my parents in their youth litter the space. I can’t bring myself to cross the threshold into that shrine for my dead mother.

  Talon rests a hand on the small of my back. “Your mother would be so proud of who you are today, Cal.”

  Suddenly, among the chattering noise of my friends settling into their new home, I hear a familiar voice order the boys around. The source steps into the foyer’s center, arms folded across her chest as she stares Talon and I down with her magnificent green eyes.

  “It’s about time the two of you showed up. I’ve been worried sick,” she scolds.

  “Mira,” I breathe, a smile stretching across my face. For a moment, I forget the crippling pain that plagues me. For a moment, everything is all right as she pulls us into a hug.

  She lets us go, stepping back to take in the sight of her son and stepdaughter. “If either of you ever pretends to be dead again, I will kill you myself. First my son, then Augustus, and one day I turn on the telescreen to see you,” her stare fixates on me, “being executed in a stadium in another country. How absurdly inconsiderate of you both to make me believe I had lost everyone I ever loved.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I hope it’s all right that we came with a load of guests?” Talon wraps an arm around his mother’s shoulders. She’s taller than me but looks so fragile compared to her massive son.

  “I will never mind having Blade around—he’s like the obedient son I never had.” Mira jabs a finger into Talon's ribs. “And of course, it’s good to see Valek. The pregnant blonde and her partner are strangers to me, but they seem nice enough. Jed... Well, last I saw him was when we were all much younger. Believe it or not, Tally, I was an agent for the Underground before I met Augustus.”

  In response to each of our questioning looks, she says, “That’s a story for another time. Oh, and Rysen. But where is Kainan?”

  Talon casts a wary glance my way. “That’s a story for another time,” he answers in a soft voice. “I’ll tell you later, Mom.”

  I’m suddenly yanked back in time. The foyer and manor disappear, and I’m no longer in Morda. I’m standing hundreds of meters below the surface of Gaitha Province, just centimeters away from Kainan.

  “That’s a story for another time,” he had said.

  Remembering the night that followed… It hurts. He died carrying pain that I caused him, all because I couldn't love him the way he loved me.

  “Calla. Calla. Cal.” Talon’s worried voice pulls me back into the present.

  I shake myself out of it, returning to the present.

  “Is she all right?” Mira asks her son.

  “No,” he answers honestly. “Losing a Flame—well, you remember what Father went through, Mom. Anything that reminds them of their mate just tears them away from the present and they go... somewhere else. But here, their bodies are mindless. And they can be unpredictable,” he explains.

  Mira gives him a small nod. “I remember. Your father almost stabbed me with a fork.”

  “I’m sorry,” is all I say, wiping my hands on my leggings just to give them something to do. “I’m sorry.”

  My stepmother rests her gentle hands on my shoulders. She stands a few inches above me, so I have to tilt my head up to meet her motherly gaze. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Come on, let’s get you comfortable.”

  I follow Mira and Talon to the kitchen where Valek and Syn have set to work making us something to eat. Talon and I help them while Jeriko and Blade ready everyone’s bedrooms. Mira joins Ryse and Jed sitting at the eat-in table against a bay window, playing a game of cards. Syn and Bellamy are visible through the windows, standing serenely on the edge of the lake.

  As I watch them play cards while I cook, I imagine Kainan sitting there, carefree and snarky, teasing his brother. They never had the chance to reforge their relationship. Jed narrows his one eye at me. “Calla?”

  “I’m fine,” I mutter, repeating myself a few times as I run the burn under cold water. You wouldn’t think something could singe a Fireblood, but it’s possible if we’re not paying attention.

  I didn’t say it back.

  My head starts to throb. I burned his corpse, because the idea of his b
ody just… lying there, in the middle of those flashing red lights and all those soldiers, makes me want to vomit. It's also the way we bury Renalds. The way we bury family. Still I wonder who was in Talon's casket, when it burned after the funeral, but I push that thought aside. Kainan's ashes now lay at the bottom of Lake Daiena just outside. It's the best that I could give him, and I know he would have loved this place.

  Spots begin to dance across my vision and I stumble, sending a plate crashing to the floor where it explodes into tiny ceramic shards. Blade and Ryse jump to their feet, but Mira is there first, bracing my shoulders. She escorts me to the living room where I settle down on the sofa, my headache growing more severe.

  “It's a sort of migraine, unique to the loss of a mate,” she says. “When your mother died, your father used to get terrible migraines, too. It’s what happens while your brain tries to deal with your Flame’s sudden absence. Kainan’s presence—it takes up a lot of space in your head, even when you two weren’t communicating. It’ll take a while for your body and mind to adjust.”

  Blade takes up the empty spot beside me and strokes my hair with a gentle hand. “What other symptoms are there?” he asks.

  “Panic attacks will be common. Body aches will come and go, and they’ll vary in severity. Insomnia, night terrors, and trouble controlling her abilities are others,” Mira explains. “For Augustus, it lasted about two weeks. But he was prepared to lose Daiena, and they had grown so distant from each other that I believe it made it easier on him.”

  “We call it Mourning Sickness back in Helkyn. How bad it is depends on the person. Not all mates love each other—those that do experience the worst of it, and it can last as long as several months,” Syn reveals, returning from the lakeside, sitting down beside me on the couch. “Years, in some cases. A few go completely mad. Others…”

  When Syn doesn’t finish her sentence, Jeriko does for her. “Others go to a dark place. They don’t recover, and they become... Well, hostile. Violent. Short-tempered, and such.”

  “Calla,” Blade says my name quietly, “Calla, whatever happens, I’m right here.”